How to Evaluate Web Pages for Accuracy

A website should be held to the same accuracy standards as a book.

Anyone with a webpage may post whatever information he chooses, whether or not it is accurate. Incorrect reports appear on the Internet every day. Before using the information on a webpage it is extremely important for you to evaluate it for accuracy.

Instructions

1. Find the author of the webpage either somewhere on the page or on the host site. If there is no author listed, there is a strong chance the article may not be accurate. If there is an author, ask yourself if the author is qualified to write the document. If the author has an e-mail or physical address listed, contact the author to determine his credibility.

2. Look for references or a bibliography somewhere on the page. If facts or studies are alluded to without a bibliography or proper reference attribution, these pieces of information may be false. Check the bibliography for accuracy by searching for the documents referenced on the Internet or in a library.

3. Check the date the information on the page was gathered. If you are looking at a webpage in 2010 and the page references a study in 1990, the information may no longer be accurate. See if the page includes a "last updated" date or a publication date. Without a date, the timeliness of the article may be called into question.

4. Determine the company or organization behind a particular webpage by looking to see the URL the page is hosted on. A page about a political candidate may be slanted negatively if you are reading the page on the opponent's site. Many different sites can include a biased opinion, and that bias is not always easy to detect. This is especially true in controversial issues, and caution should be exercised when trusting websites on those subjects.

5. Verify the information on the site that has met all the other criteria with another site that meets the criteria of an accurate page. If one page out of the entire Web has just the information you need, it may be too good to be true. Check another site, a paper source or an expert opinion to verify this information.

References

• MTV: Kanye West Is Not Dead
• Cornell University: Five Criteria for Evaluating Web Pages
• Johns Hopkins University: Evaluating Internet Information