English 10 name:
Mrs. Sharp period:
ICYouSee Guide to Critical Thinking
Evaluating Web-Based Resources
When examining Web pages, consider the following:
1. Make sure you are in the right place.
Why are you using the Web? Don't use the Web because it is easy; use it when it is the appropriate source for the information you are seeking. An hour on the Web may not answer a question that you could find within two minutes of picking up a reference book. (This is not to say there aren't useful Web sources, but ChaCha isn’t always the answer!)
The Web may have been originally designed as a medium to exchange scientific (and military?) research data, but it has become a commercial playground. The research is still there, but it is harder to find, or no longer free, or not easily accessible, or inaccessible, or just plain garbage.
2. When in doubt, doubt.
Because almost anyone can put almost anything on the Web, you must be especially careful as you examine each site. Accuracy is not always easy to detect, so you must test one source against another. Try to differentiate fact from opinion. Look for ambiguity and manipulative reasoning and bias. Examine assumptions, including and perhaps especially, your own.
For example, who coined the phrase "Question authority!"? A quick search of the web came up with the following answers:
- Several sites attribute the phrase to a partial quote from Timothy Leary, an American writer, psychologist, campaigner for psychedelic drug research and use, without indicating where he said or wrote it.
- A page claiming that Timothy Leary was a CIA agent says Leary said it but was quoting Socrates.
- Ben Franklin hasn't been forgotten, nor Hunter S. Thompson.
- A Web page (now long gone) credited an anonymous graffiti artist.
- Many simply credit a bumper sticker, but was it from the sixties or the seventies? Perhaps it's a bumper sticker summation of Socrates' idea.
- For those of you who trust Wikipedia, even it doesn't seem to know [citation needed].
- To complete the circle, the website where this example is taken from has been used (but not cited) as an authority on the origins of the slogan. And, on at least one site, the phrase "bumper sticker summation of Socrates' idea" is repeated.
3. Consider the source.
Who are the authors of the Web page? What gives them their expertise? By what authority do they write? Have the authors indicated their research methods or provided any supportive evidence for their conclusions? Have they provided you a means to contact them? Check the URL to see if the domain name includes;
.com (commercial),
.gov (governmental),
.org (non-profit organization),
.net (network),
.edu (educational),
or a two letter code (country of origin)
The code will give you a good clue about the Web page's author or source. You can't judge a Web site just by its code, however. Not all commercial sites will try to sell you something, but they warrant a different kind of scrutiny than those at a governmental site. Pages found on educational or non-profit organization Web servers can be very diverse. Non-profits can be professional associations or rebellious societies or silly groups. Educational Web sites range from forums for immature humor to clearinghouses for cutting edge articles on post-partum particle physics (OK, I made that last one up. Who can you trust? And who is the author of this page, anyway?).
4. Know what's happening.
Identify the purpose of the Web Page. Is the main purpose to inform, to persuade, or to sell you something? If you know the motive behind the page's creation, you can better judge its content.
For example, an online movie review should be judged on the same merit as a review in the daily newspaper. Make sure what you are looking at is a movie review or real film criticism. However, what you will more likely to find on the Web is a blurb about a film supplied by the movie studio producing it orsome fan's bubbling praise.
5. Look at details.
Although great ideas and great Web design are not necessarily linked, internal clues can tell you much about a Web page. Check for the obvious things, such as good grammar and correct spelling. Note the depth of the material presented. When was the Web item last revised, and how up-to-date are the links? What kinds of sources are linked? Are the links evaluated or annotated in any way? Graphics may be great, but do they serve any purpose other than decoration? Just as a magazine with many color advertisements may have a different purpose than a scholarly journal with no illustrations, a Web site with mirthful color and slickness may not be primarily a research site.
6. Distinguish Web pages from pages found on the Web.
When people speak of Web pages, they usually don't mean pages from books and research articles, but books, government documents, and scholarly periodical articles are all accessible through the Web. These types of materials, often required by teachers and professors for research projects, can be quite different in scope, focus, and reliability than pages originally designed for the Web.
What can be confusing is how publishing has been changing. Some research articles may only be available online. Many libraries no longer subscribe to some periodicals in paper, but subscribe online or rely on full text access to the journal through a Web-based periodical database.
To get an idea of the difference between "regular" Web pages and periodical articles found on the Web, compare the results between a regular Google search for "flirting" with those resulting from a search using Google Scholar.
Classwork/Homework
Using the topic of "The Mayan Calendar," take some time to analyze the following links. First, take a brief look at all of the sites to get a sense of which ones are reliable sources of information.
· The Sacred Maya Calendar -- http://www.maya-portal.net/calendar
· Mayan Calendar -- http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/astronomy/MayanCalendar.html
· Dreamspell Calendar -- http://home.earthlink.net/~cosmichand/
· Maya Calendar -- http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1947PASP...59...17M
· Portals of Destiny -- http://www.kachina.net/~alunajoy/96apr.html
Once you have looked at all the sites, go back and select TWO sites to evaluate more thoroughly. To evaluate the two sites, answer the following questions about each:
1. Make sure you are in the right place: Is this site a good source for the information you need? Was the page worth visiting?
2. When in doubt, doubt: Do you have good reason to believe that the information on the site is accurate? Are the facts documented?
3. Consider the source: Who are the authors and who is responsible for the site? What gives them the authority or expertise to write about this topic? When was the information on the page originally written? Has the site been kept up-to-date?
4. Know what's happening: What is the site's purpose or point of view?
5. Distinguish Web pages from pages found on the Web: Was this page designed for the Web, or is it something else, such as a government document or a journal article?
6. Value: Was the page worth visiting? Does the site offer anything informative, unique, or insightful? Is the site free of careless errors, misspelled words, and poor grammar?
Write your findings on a SEPARATE SHEET OF LINED PAPER!
Henderson, John. “ICYouSee Guide to Critical Thinking.” Media Awareness Network. 3 February 2014. Web. 13 February 2014.