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Sizing Up a Web Page
If you have used a search engine (Google, Alta Vista) to look
for web sites, use the following checklist to determine if a located
Web page is coming from an authoritative, accurate, and reliable
source:
Authority
Who is responsible for the contents? Very important
to know!
Is there a contact person? [Look for an email address,
mailing address, telephone number.]
Accuracy
Are there spelling or grammatical errors?
Is the information well written?
Is factual information credited by sources? In otherwords,
are these sources listed?
Are any graphs, charts, tables shown and are they
easy to read?
Objectivity
Is the point of view evident? What are potential
biases?
Is there a mission or goal statement? Organizations
or associations should have mission or goal statements.
If there is both advertising and information on
the page, is there a clear differentiation between the two?
Are links provided to the sites of any mentioned
nonprofit or corporate sponsors? If so, this is a way to find
out about them and how they relate to the information on the Web
site.
Currency
Is the date the material was first placed on the
server included?
If contents have been revised, is the date of revision
included? Consider how recent these dates are.
Coverage
Who is the intended audience?
Is there a print equivalent to the Web page or site?
If so, does it include parts to the printed work or is the entire
work included?
Is there an indication of the types of materials
included at the site? For example, is the material from scholarly
magazines or reports? A newspaper web site? Is it a site from
an association, e.g., American Medical Assocation, which contains
current medical news?
Interaction and Transaction Features
Does the site indicate what measures have been take
to ensure security (if purchasing online) or privacy?
Navigation
If you clicked on a link within the Web site, can you easily return
to the original Web page?
This page was last modified :
April 6, 2006
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