Evaluating

>   **Techniques**  **for Web Evaluation** **:** 1. Before you leave the list of search results -- before you click and get interested in anything written on the page -- glean all you can from the URLs of each page. 2. Then choose pages most likely to be reliable and authentic.  **3. Look for indicators of quality information** **:** **Techniques**  **for Web Evaluation**  **:**  1. Look for a link called "links," "additional sites," "related links," etc. 2. In the text, if you see little footnote numbers or links that might refer to documentation, take the time to explore them. What kinds of publications or sites are they? Reputable? Scholarly? Are they real? On the web (where no publisher is editing most pages), it is possible to create totally fake references. 3. Look at the publisher of the page (first part of the URL). Expect a journal article, newspaper article, and some other publications that are recent to come from the original publisher IF the publication is available on the web. Look at the bottom of such articles for copyright information or permissions to reproduce. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
 * 1) <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Train your eye and your fingers to employ a series of **techniques** that help you quickly find what you need to know about web pages;
 * 2) <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Train your mind to think critically, even suspiciously, by **asking a series of questions** that will help you decide how much a web page is to be trusted.
 * 3) <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**1. What can the URL tell you?**
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">4. What do others say? **

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Techniques** <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> **for Web Evaluation**  <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**:**  <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">1. Find out what other web pages link to this page. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">a. Use [|alexa.com]: <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Type or paste the URL into alexa.com's search box. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Click on the "Get details" button. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">You will see, depending on the volume of traffic to the page: <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">b. Do a **<span style="font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;">link: ** search in Google, Yahoo!, or another search engine where this can be done: <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">1. Copy the URL of the page you are investigating (Ctrl+C in Windows). <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">2. Go to the search engine site, and type **<span style="font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;">link: ** in the search box. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">3. Paste the URL into the search box immediately following **<span style="font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;">link: ** (no space after the colon). <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The pages listed all contain one or more links to the page you are looking for. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">If you find no links, try a shorter portion of the URL, stopping after each /. //Note: Different search engines give very different results for "link:" searches. We suggest trying more than one.// <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">2. Look up the title or publisher of the page in a reputable [|directory] that evaluates its contents ([|ipl2], [|Infomine], [|About.com], or a specialized directory you trust).
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Traffic details.
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Contact/ownership info for the domain name.
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"Related links" to other sites visited by people who visited the page.
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Sites linking in to the page.
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">A link to the "[|Wayback Machine]," an archive showing what the page looked like in the past.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">3. Look up the author's name in Google or Yahoo! <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">For the most complete results in Google, search the name three ways: <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">a. without quotes: **<span style="font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;">Firstname Lastname ** <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">b. enclosed in quotes as a phrase: <span style="font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;">**"Firstname Lastname"** <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">c. enclosed in quotes with**<span style="font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;"> * **between the first and last name: **<span style="font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;">"Firstname * Lastname" ** (The **<span style="font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;">* ** can stand for any middle initial or name in Google only). <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**5. Does it all add up?** <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Techniques** <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> **for Web Evaluation**  <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**:**  <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">1. Step back and think about all you have learned about the page. Listen to your gut reaction. Think about why the page was created, the intentions of its author(s). <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">If you have doubts, ask your instructor or come to one of the library reference desks and ask for advice. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">2. Be sensitive to the possibility that you are the victim of irony, spoof, fraud, or other falsehood. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">3. Ask yourself if the web is truly the best place to find resources for the research you are doing.