Web+Research+5



=**Web Research 5 : Evaluating Information Found on the WWW**=


 * Aim:**

How do we apply critical thinking skills to searching for and evaluating Web resources?


 * Common Core State Standards:**


 * CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.11-12.7** Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.


 * CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.11-12.8** Gather relevant information from multiple authoritative print and digital sources, using advanced searches effectively; assess the strengths and limitations of each source in terms of the task, purpose, and audience; integrate information into the text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas, avoiding plagiarism and overreliance on any one source and following a standard format for citation.


 * Objectives:**

Students will learn how to apply critical thinking skills to searching for and evaluating Web resources.


 * Vocabulary:**


 * Web evaluation


 * Introduction:**

Critical thinking skills have always been important to the process of searching for and using information from media such as books, journals, radio broadcasts, television reports, and so forth. With the advent of the Internet and the WWW, these skills have become even more crucial.

Traditional books and journal articles need to pass some kind of editorial scrutiny before being published.

Web pages, however, can appear without a single person ever reading them through to check for accuracy.

Libraries have collection development policies that govern what material they will and will not buy; the Internet and the Web, having no such policies, collect anything.

this isn't to say that there isn't information of high quality on the Internet.

There are thousands of high-caliber Web sites and well-regarded databases.

It is your responsibility to decide whether a page or site is worth selecting and then determine, using well-established guidelines, whether the information is worth using in your research paper, project, or presentation.


 * Discussion:**

When we use information from the Web, we need to evaluate the information we find there on a variety of different levels. We need to ask lots of questions.

However, if you'd like to find information that has already been evaluated for you, you may use directories such as the ones already mentioned:


 * Infomine
 * Internet Public Library
 * Intute
 * Library Spot
 * Refdesk.com

It's useful to visit sites that have been reviewed by someone else.

Still, when you deal with any information you find on the Web or in a library, it is up to you to be skeptical about it and to assess whether it's appropriate for your purposes.


 * Who is the Author or Institution?**


 * If an individual has written the resource, does it offer or give links to biographical information about the author? For example, does it mention educational or other credentials, an occupation, or an institutional affiliation?


 * What clues does the URL give you about the source's authority? A tilde (~) in the Web page's URL usually indicates that is is a personal page rather than part of an institutional Web site. Also, make a mental note of the domain section of the URL.

You can't consider a resource reliable if you don't know who wrote it or what institution published it. If a Web page doesn't give that information, then you should be suspicious of its content.


 * Who is the Audience?**


 * Is the Web page intended for the general public, or is it meant for scholars, practitioners, children, and so forth? Is the audience clearly stated?


 * Does the Web page meet the needs of its stated audience?


 * Is the Content Accurate and Objective?**


 * Are there political, ideological, cultural, religious, or institutional biases?


 * Is the content intended to be a brief overview of the topic or an in-depth analysis?


 * If the information is opinion, is this clearly stated?


 * If there are facts and statistics included, are they properly cited?


 * Is it clear how the data was collected, and is it presented in a logical, organized way?


 * Is there a bibliography at the end of the document?


 * If the page is part of a larger institution's Web site, does the institution appear to filter the information that appears at its site? Was the information screened somehow before it was put on the Web?

One of the first things to look for in a Web page is spelling errors. Spelling and grammatical errors not only indicate a lack of editorial control but also undermine the accuracy of the information. It is also extremely important that statistics, research findings, and other claims are documented and cited very carefully. Otherwise, the author could be distorting information or using unreliable data. In the best situations, claims or statistics on Web pages are supported by original research or by hyperlinks or footnotes to the primary sources of the information.

Sometimes, however, you will have to verify the accuracy and objectivity of published information on your own. A good way to do this is by checking to see if the information can be corroborated by other sources. Some researchers promote triangulation: finding at least three sources that agree with the opinions or statistics that the author expounds as fact. If the sources don't agree, you'll need to do more work before you conclude your research. Remember that traditional resources such as books, journal articles, and other material available in libraries may contain more comprehensive information than what is on the Web. You can use those resources as part of the corroboration process as well.


 * What is the Purpose of the Information?**


 * Is the purpose of the information to inform, explain, convince, market a product, or advocate a cause?


 * Is the purpose clearly stated?


 * Does the resource fulfill the stated purpose?


 * How Current I the Information?**


 * Does the Web page have a date that indicates when it was placed on the Web?


 * Is it clear when the page was last updated?


 * Is some of the information obviously out of date?


 * Does the page creator mention how frequently the material is updated?


 * Are there any hyperlinks that don't work?


 * In-Class Activity:**

In this activity, we'll apply the guidelines for evaluating information on the Web. If we were researching a topic related to the nutritional advantages of organic food, we might come across the following two articles:


 * Unearthing the Truth about Organic Food (@http://www.cgfi.org/2001/09/unearthing-the-truth-about-organic-food/

and

Is Organically Grown Food More Nutritious? (@http://www.mindfully.org/Food/Organic-More-Nutritious-WorthingtonNov01.htm)

The first article is quite negative about the nutritional advantages of organic food, and the second one claims that organic food is much better for us than food grown in more conventional ways.

We'll evaluate each of these two articles by going through the guidelines, asking the following questions:

1. Who is the author or institution? 2. Who is the audience? 3. What is the purpose of the information? 4. Is the content accurate and objective? 5. How current is the information?

In this activity, we'll be able to obtain answers in a rather direct way. It's not always so straightforward, but this is meant to be a demonstration. In your own work, you have to be more persistent and discerning.

1) Who is the author or institution of the first article?

The article is written by Dennis T. and Alex A. Avery, and its posted on a Web site produced by the Center for Global Food Issues. There is a link entitled **About CGFI** on this page. Let's find out about this organization. Click on the link.

We find out that Dennis Avery, one of the authors, is director of the Center for Global Food Issues. We can find out more about him by clicking on the link **Dennis T. Avery**. We find out that Mr. Avery studied agricultural economics and has worked as an agricultural analyst for the U.S. Government. We could also find out more about Dennis Avery by doing a search in a major search engine, or going to Google Groups to see what others are saying about him. (Google Groups is a service that indexes group discussions).

Go to @http://groups.google.com. Type in the name Dennis Avery in the search form. There are several discussions that mention his name. They appear to be about the Dennis Avery we are interested in since the discussions center on food issues.

We also find out that the CGFI is a project of the Hudson Institute. We can now do a search in a search engine to learn about the Hudson Institute.

Go to Google and search for **Hudson Institute**. The first result will take you to the Hudson Institute. Go there and click on the **About Hudson** link. Read their Mission Statement. The Hudson Institute is a private, non-profit policy research organization that makes recommendations to government and business leaders on several issues, including global food and the environment.

2) Who is the audience?

While the site doesn't specifically say what audience the information presented is geared towards, we infer that it is written for adults who are probably already cynical about the nutritional advantages of organic food. It assumes that the people reading the article have similar views as the authors.

3) What is the purpose of the information?

To answer this question we should return to the Center for Global Food Issues and read more about this institution, and its parent organization, the Hudson Institute. We can read about what these institutions say about themselves, and also what others say about them. At this point, it might be useful to go back to the Google results and see if there's other information about the Hudson Institute.

Click the back button. One of the sites listed in a Wikipedia article at @http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson_Institute. Let's see what Wikipedia has to say about the Hudson Institute. In this article, a footnoted piece of information states which companies fund the organization. This information can help us determine what the information's purpose is - to possibly publish information that fits with these companies' products and concerns.

4) Is the content accurate and objective?

The article discusses a report written by Shane Heaton and published by the United Kingdom's Soil Association, and criticizes its findings that organic food is nutritionally better than food grown with pesticides. The article doesn't provide a link to the Soil Association's report. It doesn't have a list of references supporting its opinion. Therefore, it is quite safe to say that this article is not objective. The tone of the article is dismissive of the Soil Association's perspective. If we do a search for Soil Association in a search engine, however, we discover that is is a proponent of organic farming and makes the claim on its Web site that organic food is nutritionally better for people.

5) How current is the information?

The date of the article, September 5, 2001, is clearly stated at the beginning of the report so the information is about 12 years old. There could be a lot of contradictory evidence that has been published since this date.

The next article we will examine, @http://www.mindfully.org/Food/Organic-More-Nutritious-WorthingtonNov01.htm, takes the opposite view from the one on the CGFI site.

1) Who is the author?

It is Virginia Worthington and it is published on the Mindfully.org Web site.

To find out something about Virginia Worthington, we can go to a search engine and type in her name.

A recent posting tells us that she died in 2006. Her biography in the //Washington Post// mentions that she was a huge proponent of organic food. Her academic credentials are impressive - a Master's degree in nutrition and a Ph.D. in international health.

By truncating the URL back to the domain name, **mindfully.org**, we can find out something about the organization that published this article.

Go to the home page and click on **About Mindfully.org**.

2) Who is the audience?

We can make some assumptions about the type of audience by going back to the About Mindfully.org Web page. The authors state that they are no liberal or conservative and urge readers to not base their opinions on one or two articles of the site. The audience of the actual article by Virginia Worthington is people who are wondering about the nutritional benefits of organic food.

3) What is the purpose of the information?

The scientific approach and explanation that the author uses would seem to suggest that Dr. Worthington wanted to prove to her audience that organic food is more nutritious.

4) Is the content accurate and objective?

This particular article doesn't have any references. However, at the bottom of the article you'll see the following:

A complete version of this article entitled, “Effect of Agricultural Methods on Nutritional Quality: A Comparison of Organic with Conventional Crops” by Dr. Virginia Worthington, appeared in Alternative Therapies, Volume 4, 1998, pages 58-69.

If you want to read the full paper, you'd have to check your library to see if they have it.

Another bit of information we can glean from this article on its accuracy and objectivity is that it appeared in the //Co-Op Connection// published by the Montanita Co-op Supermarket.

If we go to the URL: @http://lamontanita.org, we find out that the La Montanita Co-op Supermarket is a store in California that sells organic foods. This leads us to think that perhaps the information may be biased.

There is also a link to another article the author wrote, which is also on the mindfully.org Web site. If you click on it: @http://www.mindfully.org/Food/Organic-Crops-Superior-WorthingtonJul99.htm, you'll see that it was published in 1999 in the journal //Biodynamics//. This article includes several references to studies related to this topic.

5) How current is the information?

The date of the article is November 2001. Because this information is more than 11 years old, it would be a good idea to do more research on this topic for information published since this date.


 * Conclusion**

After researching the authors and the institutions responsible for posting these two articles, we come to the conclusion that the coverage of this topic is fraught with political biases.


 * Further Resources**


 * @http://olinuris.library.cornell.edu/ref/research/skill26.htm


 * @http://guides.library.jhu.edu/evaluatinginformation


 * @http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/college/thinking-critically-about-world-wide-web-resources


 * @http://www.vuw.ac.nz/staff/alastair_smith/evaln/index.htm


 * @https://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Evaluate.html


 * @http://oldsite.lib.purdue.edu/research/techman/evaluate.html

@http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/FindInfo.html

@http://liblearn.osu.edu/tutor/


 * Homework:**

1. These sites have to do with immigration. Use the methods discussed in the chapter to evaluate the accuracy and objectivity of each site. Mention the sponsoring organization.

a. Texans for Fair Immigration, Inc. Immigration Facts and Statistics, http://www.texansforimmigrationreform.com b. Migration Dialog, http://migration.ucdavis.edu c. Health Reform Legislation and Immigration at http://www.cis.org/IllegalHealthcareReform

2. The following resources provide information on alternative medicine. Using the criteria listed in this lesson, evaluate each of these sites for authorship, currency, accuracy, and bias.

a. Alternative Medicine Health Updates, at http://heall.com/body/healthupdates/index.html b. HerbMed, at http://www.herbmed.org c. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, at http://nccam.nih.gov

3. These Web pages all have to do with the issue of sustainable forest management. Write a brief evaluation of each, focusing on whether the information is objective or is advocating a cause.

a. TimberTrek at http://www.nafi.com.au/timbertrak.html b. Sustainable Hardwoods: AHEC Europe at http://www.sustainablehardwoods.info c. Forest Protection and Watershed Restoration at http://www.northcascades.org/programs/forest_watershed.html

4. Now take a look at the topic of smoking. Which of these two sites do you think gives more accurate, reliable information? Would you use any of them as a source for a research paper? All of them? None of them? Why?

a. Action on Smoking and Health at http://ash.org b. Virginia Smokers Alliance at http://www.virginiasmokersalliance.com b. Quitting Smoking: Why to Quit and How to Get Help at http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Tobacco/cessation

5. Let's look at some commercial sites. Explore the following sites. What is the audience and what is the purpose of each of these commercial sites? Is the main purpose informational or to sell a product? Is the information given reliable? What do you think of the mix?

a. Better Homes and Garden Online at http://www.bhg.com b. Michael Flatley's Lord of the Dance at http://lordofthedance.com c. DeBeers at http://www.debeers.com d. Edmunds.com at http://edmunds.com

6. Look at these resources about home schooling and compare the information. Evaluate each site based on the criteria given in the lesson.

a. A Personal Opinion About Home Schooling at http://www.adprima.com/homeschooling.htm b. Is Homeschool for You? at http://homeschooling.about.comgettingstarted/a/homeschool4you.htm c. Post-secondary Decisions of Public School and Homeschool Graduates at http://www.uwstout.edu/lib/thesis/2001/2001lueckeh.pdf

7. Compare Web site evaluation criteria offered by two of the resources listed here:

@http://olinuris.library.cornell.edu/ref/research/skill26.htm

[@http://guides.library.jhu.edu/evaluatinginformation]]

@http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/college/thinking-critically-about-world-wide-web-resources

@http://www.vuw.ac.nz/staff/alastair_smith/evaln/index.htm

@https://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Evaluate.html

@http://oldsite.lib.purdue.edu/research/techman/evaluate.html

How are they the same and how do they differ? Which one do you think is the most complete and useful?


 * Summary:**

The Web gives us access to a great variety of information on many different topics.

When we want to use the resources we find on the Web for information or research purposes, we need to exercise some care to be sure it's authentic, reliable, and authoritative.

We need to be equally cautious when we use other sources.

Print sources that are available to us through a research or academic library have often been put through a screening process by professional librarians.

There are several directories that contain evaluated resources on the Web, and its useful to consult some of these libraries when doing research.

Information in many directories tens to be evaluated before it's listed.

Plus, by consulting these directories, we can also observe how librarians and other information specialists evaluate resources.

It pays to be skeptical or critical of information we want to use.

It's relatively easy to publish information on the Web, and it can be presented in such a way as to hide its intent or purpose.

Generally, as we evaluate documents, we also learn more about the topic we're considering.

Assessing resources makes us more confident of the information and helps us become better versed in the topic.

We need to use some general guidelines or criteria when evaluating information or resources.

In this vein, we should ask the following questions about whatever information we find:


 * Who is the author or institution?
 * How current is the information?
 * Who is the audience?
 * Is the content accurate and objective?
 * What is the purpose of the information?


 * Various strategies will help us find answers to the questions. Here are some of those tips:**


 * Look for the name of the author or institution at the top of bottom of a Web page.
 * Got to the home page for the site hosting the information to find out about the organization
 * To find further information about the institution or author, use a search engine to see what related information is available on the Web.
 * Use Google Groups to search archives of discussion group articles. This way, you can find other information about the author or institution. You can also find out if the author has posted anything to a group.
 * Check the top and bottom of a Web page for the date on which the information was last modified or updated.

There are a number of Web resources that can help us evaluate information and that discuss issues related to assessing documents, and we have included many of the best in this chapter.


 * Summary Activity:**

3-2-1

Name 3 new things you learned from the lesson.

Name 2 areas in which you are still confused.

Name 1 way you might apply what you've learned to another area.


 * Source:**

Hartman, K. and Ackerman, E. (2010). //Searching and researching on the Internet and the World Wide Web//. Sherwood, OR: Franklin, Beedle & Associates.