Globalization: Evaluating Websites

Criteria & Questions to Consider:

• Who wrote the page?
• Is it an individual or an organization?
• How authoritative is the information?
• What are the author's credentials?
• Can you verify the author's credentials?
• Did the author include contact information?
• What organization is sponsoring the web page?

Examples of web pages where the author is questionable:

Examples of web pages where the author is an organization:

Tips & Ideas when evaluating the author:

• Look for the author's name near the top or the bottom of the page.
• If you can't find a name, look for a copyright credit (©) or link to an organization.
• Look for biographical information or the author's affiliations (university department, organization, corporate title, etc.).
• Look for an email link, address, or phone number for the author. A responsible author should give you the means to contact him/her.
• If the author is an organization, look for an about link, or an About this site or about us link

Criteria & Questions to Consider:

• What is the purpose of the page?
• Why did the author create it?
  • To provide reliable information?
  • To sell you something?
  • To convince you of something?
  • To entertain you?
• Is the author being objective or biased?
• Is the information fact or opinion?

Some websites with different purposes:

Some sites that are probably biased in their viewpoint:

Tips & Ideas:

• Biased information is not necessarily "bad", but you must take the bias into account when interpreting or using the information given.
• Look at the facts the author provides, and the facts the author doesn't provide.
• Are the facts accurately and completely cited?
• Is the author fair, balanced, and moderate in his/her views, or is the author overly emotional or extreme?
• Based on the author's authority, try to identify any conflict of interest. Determine if the advertising is clearly separated from the objective information on the page.

Criteria & Questions to Consider:

• Where does the information come from?
• How well are claims documented?
• Does the author support the information he/she uses with references to the sources he/she used?
• Is the support respectable?

Examples of Web pages where the author gave the references that they used:

Tips & Ideas:

• Look for links or citations to sources. Some academic web pages include bibliographies.
• Does the page cite well-known sources or authorities?
• Does the page cite a variety of sources?
• Do other pages on the same topic cite some of the same sources?
• The web page in question should have a mix of internal links (links to web pages on the same site or by the same author) and external links (links to other sources or experts).
• If a web page makes it hard for you to check the support, be suspicious.

There is a mixture of really good and bad sites in the list below. You will be assigned one of these web sites to evaluate.