When reading and watching more about how to evaluate websites, I was shocked at the amount of things that are suggested for you to look at. It made me think, after all these years I’ve really just been settling for any website I think may have what I’m looking for regardless of how credible it actually is.
Typically, I’d search whatever I was looking for and pick the most relevant title, maybe the first or second article to the top and without looking further, I’d take the information I needed as the absolute truth without looking to see if there was any authority, bias, currency, or documentation.
Now after reading all this information in regards to website evaluation, I feel like a fool! Like I have been mislead this whole time that I have been using the internet. Sure, I knew not everything on the internet was the truth but I would trust websites that look legitimate by the way they have been set up, with their headings and pictures and nothing about the actual content of the website.
Now, I wish I had been checking for the actual content of the websites I use because it is not difficult at all! Also, by using credible websites, I can include them in the papers I write for my college classes without looking stupid!
How to Check for a credible website?
You could first start just by checking the url! You can tell whether the website will be commercial through .com, whether the website is an organization run website through .org, whether the website is education based like .edu, and so on!
Then, once you have picked your website, it’s as easy as ABC… and d’s
A– check for AUTHORITY, who wrote the site? You can check this by looking at mission statements or about us pages.
B– check for BIAS, you can check this by looking at the advertisements on the page.
C– check for CURRENCY, how up to date is the article, when was it written?
D– check for DOCUMENTATION, did they site their sources?
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