Internet Evaluation

This in-class assignment covers the skills of finding and evaluating relevant research resources on the Web. Its goals are:-

  • to give you practice in evaluating raw data and deciding on its relevance to, and reliability for, your current research project.
  • to sharpen your critical analysis of information you have found and your use of evidence to support your conclusions.
  • to develop a set of critical evaluative skills you will be able to apply to any information source, whether it be verbal (an interview, an observation case study, a survey, or a personal communication) or text-based (a book, a scholarly article, a magazine, etc.) or electronic.

My criteria for grading this assignment as part of your Class Participation grade are as follows:-

  • The relevance to your research project of the site you choose to evaluate. For example, if you choose to evaluate a site that is very small, or contains little information relating to your project, then your grade will fall correspondingly.
  • The thoroughness of your response. I expect at least three to four typed pages in response to this assignment. One to one-and-a-half pages should contain the responses to the warm-up exercises you conduct with a partner. The remainder should contain your individual evaluation of a web site you might use as a major internet source for your final research project.
  • The relevance to the evaluation of the material you include in your written report. If you pad out your evaluation with excess verbiage, irrelevant comments or evidence that does not support your evaluations, the grade will also fall.
  • Style. You may write as informally as you wish for this assignment, bearing in mind the caveats noted immediately above. Clarity of thought and perceptive use of evidence are more important than a perfected, formal style. I should, however, be able to read and understand your evaluation without having to make inspired guesses or leaps of faith.

Each evaluation should contain material on:-

  • the author(s) of your site
  • the organization, if any, responsible for publishing the information on the Web
  • the specific points of view or biases you find in the site
  • the accuracy or verifiability of information contained in the site
  • whether or not the information is up-to-date
  • the relevance of the information on the site to your particular research project
  • the relevance of the links to the subject and level of discussion on the site
  • the use (adding information, creating a mood on the page, helping you to navigate the site, etc.) and quality of graphics

The Milton pages on Evaluating the Internet and Practical Steps in Evaluating Internet Resources will help you with several of these categories.

 

Warm-Up Exercises

1) Using the Milton guide to Understanding and Decoding URLs write a short note on each of the following web sites detailing the information you have gleaned about the site from its URL. Where is the site located geographically? What kind of information would you expect to find on each website? What points of view or biases might you need to watch out for? What precautions might you as a researcher need to take if you decide to use information from each of these sites? Cite your evidence carefully.

 

2) Choose one of the above web sites and conduct a preliminary, one-paragraph analysis noting down the information you can find on each of the following categories:- authorship; publishing organization; point of view or potential bias; currency of information.

 

3) Look at the following sites on the TV show Seinfeld. Which do you think would be most reliable and why?

 

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