Internet credibility
| Credibility |
| 13 questions to ask |
| Other credibility tests | Acknowledgements |
Are Web sources credible? That question is misleadingly broad! It is
based on the false premise that all Web sources are more or less of
equal quality. They are not.
Instead, ask two useful questions: How much trust — or how
little — should be placed in specific Internet sources? And what are
meaningful criteria for answering that kind of question?
Where an article or report can be less important than knowing
1) who wrote it, 2) what was the author's intent, and 3) who is sponsoring
the website.
Knowing how to react thoughtfully to live presentations, videotapes,
books and newspaper articles, as well as to statements made by teachers
and classmates is helpful in evaluating networked resources on the
Internet and Web.
However, your evaluation of websites should also address issues
associated with the ease and anonymity with which Internet sources are
modified.
To evaluate the credibility of Internet sources systematically,
your goal should be able to answer as many of the following thirteen
questions if they are relevant to the websites you are considering as
sources for the paper that you are writing. These thirteen questions review
and elaborate (expand) on what you already have learned about how to
question and evaluate the authoritativeness of any verbal, visual,
audiovisual or electronic source:
2. Is there a way to contact the personal or corporate
author of a website or an e-mail? Or is the author's identity
concealed?
3. Are primary and secondary sources for claimed facts cited clearly
enough that you can track those sources down, i.e., fnd them and
examine them?
4. Does the author of the website honestly acknowledge and
engage alternative versions of controverted facts and
competing interpretations?
7. Conversely, does the ease with which Web content is modified lead you
to be skeptical about its reliability as a documentary record? If
so, how will you resolve your doubts? After all, a line of hypertext
mark-up language, i.e., HTML, can be rewritten in less than a minute!
Compare current and earlier versions of the same website in the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.
8. How convincing are inferences made by the website's author
from information on the website or the person sending the e-mail?
Credibility
13 questions to ask
1. How qualified is the person or organization
responsible for the website or e-mail communication? If your source is a
personal web page and not an institutional one, that fact does not
necessarily discredit it. That's the lazy way out. Instead, look more
closely at the evidence and the connections. After all, institutions
— corporations and governments — also act incompetently,
dissemblingly and mendaciously.
5. Is this website logically organized? Does the arrangement of
general and specific (dependent, illustrative) parts of web content
clearly reflect their interrelationship with one another? If
appropriate, is a user's "Help" function provided? For example, if an author claims that the talented
Chinese Muslim navigator Admiral Zheng He (Cheng Ho [1371-1435]) sailed to
New Zealand and South America in the fifteenth century, does s/he also
address evidence assembled by reputable cartographers, linguists and
historians for the purpose of refuting that assertion?
6. Not all content needs to be regularly changed. But if this
website should be updated on a regular basis, is its content
current?
TOP OF THIS PAGE.
Compare current and earlier versions of the same website in the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. Also,
consult Daniel J. Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig, Digital History: A
Guide To Gathering, Preserving, And Presenting the Past On The Web
(George Mason University, Center for History and New Media, 2007).
For example, investigative journalist Ian Lind
discovered that an editor of the web edition of The Honolulu
Advertiser had altered a quote from a public speech by President Evan
Dobelle of the University of Hawai‘i in an attempt to shield the
President from scrutiny. But too late for the failed cover-up, the print
(hard copy) with the embarrassing quotation had already been published!
Click here and scroll
down to "July 24, 2002 - Wednesday." The editor's ineffective subterfuge
and the newspaper's failed cover-up were also summarized by Mr. Lind in
the Honolulu Weekly, 31 July - 6 August 2002.
For example, why are "conspiracy" theorists often so
unconvincing? First of all, many of them refuse to take responsibility for
what they write on the Internet. Ask: Why are they typically unwilling
to definewhat they really mean by "conspiracy"? Why do are they,
instead, content to repeat the word conspiracy as if repetitiously
insinuating "conspiracy" added explanatory force to their hinting,
implying and suggesting? What is their standard for convincing
evidence? What is their standard for asserting a cause-and-effect
relationship? Are conspiracy theorists unable or unwilling to distinguish
an outcome that is planned by someone from one that happens to
benefit the same person? And since conspiracy theories are part of
the American political landscape, why are they unwilling to consider the
possibility that their claims are nothing more than another form
political escapism diverting our attention and energies from
solving serious local and international problems?
9. If you are reading an English-language page of a multilingual website (especially one whose primary language is not English), are you reading a full translation? Or just a summary?
10. Does the author of your selected website describe linked websites described fairly and accurately?
11. Do unexpected gaps in information on your selected website require looking elsewhere for printed, oral or audiovisual sources?
12. Is this website accessible to all people who might be able to challenge its claims, including people with disabilities?
13. All things considered, how much overall confidence should one place in the website or e-mail communication that you are thinking of quoting?
TOP OF THIS PAGE.
• Business, Humanities, and Social Sciences Department, Hamilton
Library, "Evaluating World Wide Web Resources," In "Evaluating
Information," Basic Library Research Handbook, 2nd ed. (First
published, 2000; Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Libraries, 28 July
2005), Chapter 7
[downloadable .pdf file].
• Josie Tong, Critical
Evaluation of Resources on the Internet (Herbert T. Coutts Education
and Physical Education Library, University of Alberta, updated 4 January
2004).
• Joe Barker, Evaluating
Web Pages: Techniques to Apply & Questions to Ask," University of
California - Berkeley Library, last updated 12 December 2006.
• Elizabeth E. Kirk, "Evaluating
Information Found on the Internet," The Sheridan Libraries, The Johns
Hopkins University, 1996 [updated 2004?].
• Victoria F. Caplan, "Evaluating and
Citing Web Resources for Research," library workshop, The Hong Kong
University of Science and Technology, 1999-present.
This web page substantially revises Vincent K. Pollard's earlier
article "The World Wide Web Demands World-Class Thinking Skills,"
Teaching for Success [Pentronics Publishing], vol. 13, no. 6 (September 2001), p. 3.
A later version appeared as "Student Guide: Evaluating Internet
Resources," The Kapi‘o Newspress [Kapi‘olani Community
College], vol. 38, issue 1 (19 August 2004), p. 2.
© 1999-2008, Vincent K. Pollard. It is prohibited to include this website's content in passworded or
fee-for-service electronic databases. If your website uses "no-frames"
html web pages, linking is allowed.
Other credibility tests
Acknowledgements
Last modified, 4 April 2008.
Contribute to
high-quality, accessible Internet research by reporting dead links.