Website Evaluation

So picture this scene. There is a student sitting in front of a computer, and it is late. Maybe its 2am or 5am, the exact time doesn’t matter. Empty cans of red bull, and coke are strewn about haphazardly. The student is paying absolutely no attention to the cleanliness of the room at this moment. All of the student’s attention is fixated on the glowing pixilated screen in front, while alternating between feverishly typing, thinking, deleting, or googling.

And what is all of this effort being put into? The odds are if you are reading this, then the probability exists that you already know. That there is some essay X, which is due for class Y, at time T. And to make things even better the essay is 178% of the final grade. There that nameless student sits; trying to find some sources and glean a last few scraps of information to patch together this Frankenstein of a document.

In this flurry of essay writing, how does this student know that the websites being visited have the information that is needed? Odds are also that the websites being cited were probably found within the first page or two of search results on Google, or some other search engine like Yahoo.

Just as important as finding an informative website, is being able to judge the quality of the information found within the website before utilizing it. The scene portrayed above is played out on countless computers, but how many of those students take the 2 or 3 minutes to stop and look at the website to judge if the information contained is accurate and unbiased.

Taking the time to learn how to look at a website is just as important as finding the information. Learning the cues to look for could potentially tip one off to an inaccurate website and may mean the difference between passing and failing. So while searching through any search engine can always turn up results, the ability to judge the accuracy and truthfulness of that website is infinitely more valuable.
This is a very important skill that can be practiced every time a webpage is visited by just keeping in mind a few simple guidelines.

Author – Things to consider about who wrote the document
o Is the author qualified to write to document? A lawyer would not necessarily write about how to program.
o Is the author’s contact information provided?

Organization – Things to consider about who is hosting the document
o What kind of organization is it? This can be quickly seen by looking at the Top Level Domain of an internet address. For example ‘.com’ is commercial websites and ’.gov’ is used for government websites.
o What sort of interest does the organization hosting the web document have? For instance an article on smoking being hosted by a tobacco corporation.

Publication – Things to consider about the document itself
o When was the last time the web document was updated?
o Is the information still accurate?
o Is it fact or opinion based?

These guidelines very often won’t help students finish essays the night they are do. No one, but the poor soul writing the essay can help with that. But by keeping these guidelines in mind can help insure greater accuracy when an essay is submitted.