15 Questions to Ask About Internet Resources
The Internet provides endless opportunities for the academic researcher to find quality sites and valuable information on virtually all areas of study. However, no source should be taken at face value, especially when discovered on the internet. Paper Masters gives you 20 question to ask of a source that you find on the internet in order to insure that it is reputable and should be used at the college level for referencing. Here is our list of questions…
15 Question to Ask of All internet Sources
- Who is the author?
- What are the author’s qualifications?
- What else has the author written on the topic?
- Who hosts the website that holds the information?
- Does the site have an affiliation with a university, government organization or other reputable organization?
- Does the information appear biased by either the author or the web publisher?
- Who does this website produce information for?
- Is the Information current?
- Is there a published on date for the article or material you are citing?
- If there are links, do they all lead to reputable information?
- Is all information presented factual or does it contain opinion?
- Does the author state where he/she retrieved the information from?
- Are the arguments presented logically with evidence cited to back up claims?
- Is the language used on the site emotional or biased?
- Are there spelling errors or grammatical mistakes?
If all these questions can be answered in a positive manner, you more than like have a reputable internet source on your hands. If even just a few of these questions cannot be answered, you may want to rethink using the information you find on the site. These are all very basic elements that should be standard of all academic research.
Summary of the Important Verifying Elements of Internet Research
Broken down, an Internet resource should have an author that is authoritative and has the credentials to support the claims being made. The website must be affiliated with an organization that is clearly identified as one that supplies quality information. And finally, the content must be relevant and up to date, free of bias and verifiable so that there is no question of the authenticity of the information.
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