Become a Net Detective

Tammy Bixler-Zalesinsky 10 December 2006

Investigate this site on Velcro and ask yourself these questions:

Why should I believe this information?

Can I defend this site as a credible part of my works cited?

Look at the URL!

Take a look at this URL and decide just from the URL if it is the link to the White House? http://www.whitehouse.net

What would you expect to see?

Which URL endings are restricted?

.edu (educational institution) .gov (government) .mil (military) .jobs .int (international businesses) .pro (attorneys, doctors, professionals) Although the URL ending can be an important

first step, a good detective looks deeper!

Look at the website itself.

Are all the links to outside web pages working?

Can you go to other web pages on the site easily?

Is it relevant to today?

Is there a date on the page?

Look at the Information

Does the information seem credible or believable?

Where did the “facts” come from?

Look at the “sources” that are listed and then search for them to see if they exist and actually say what they were quoted as saying.

Take a look at the facts! For example,

let’s take a look at this website’s sources. Then take a look at EBSCOhost through InfOhio to see if the sources really exist.

Take a look at other verified sources.

Purpose Sites can meet

all of the earlier criteria, but if the purpose of the site is to lead you to conclude a certain viewpoint it may still be biased.

What is the mission of the author or organization sponsoring the site?

Are they trying to sell you something?

How can you tell if it is just all made up?

Download and print this evaluation tool to evaluate the next website.

Spanish Version

Try your evaluation tool on this site.

What were your scores?

What made you think this was an authentic site?

What made you begin to question it?

Now create your own search for the good and the bad!

Your research question is: “What percent of our brains do we actually use?”

Search words “percent” + “brain” + “use”

Discussion and Reflection Where you able to spot any misleading sites

just by their URL? Were you able to weed out any sites by their

misleading information? Were you able to look up the statistics and

sources quoted by the site? Were they legitimate?

Where you able to determine the purpose of the site?

Will you use these questions in the future to differentiate credible sites in your search results?

Works CitedCollege Republicans at Texas. Bush/Cheney 04. 2004. Coll. Repubicans at Texas: U of

Texas at Austin 2003-04. 24 Nov. 2006 <http://studentorgs.utexas.edu/cr/OLD%20WEBSITES/contact.html>.

Google. 2006. 24 Nov. 2006 <http://www.google.com>. Henderson, John R. AIDS Facts. 2005. Ithaca Coll. Lib. 24 Nov. 2006

     <http://147.129.226.1/library/research/AIDSFACTS.htm>. Herrin, Bill, and Chris Mincer. "The White House." White House.Net. 2006. 24

     Nov. 2006 <http://www.whitehouse.net>. McLachlan, Karen. "Cyberguide Ratings for Content Evaluation." Cyberbee. 31 July

     2002. 24 Nov. 2006 <http://www.cyberbee.com/content.pdf>. Maloney, Catherine, et al. "Feline Reactions to Bearded Men." Improbable Research. 1999.

Annals of Improbable Research (AIR). 24 Nov. 2006<http://www.improbable.com/airchives/classical/cat/cat.html>.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Pumpkins. P. E. T. PU. 2006. 24 Nov. 2006     <http://www.geocities.com/petpu4/>.

Umbach, Ken. Californian's Velcro Crop under Challenge. 1996. 24 Nov. 2006     <http://home.inreach.com/kumbach/velcro.html>.

Wey, Tom. Dihydrogen Monoxide Research Division. 24 Nov. 2006. 24 Nov. 2006<http://www.dhmo.org>.