ONLINE SOURCES AND THEIR REPUTABILITY

LENNARD GULUK

DAVID CRITES, MARJIE RISEN

TECHNOLOGY IN EDUCATION (EDUC – 201 – 80 N)

INDEPENDENT TECHNOLOGY PROJECT

11/24/2013

WHAT ARE THE THREE THINGS YOU NEED TO CONSIDER WHEN USING ONLINE

SOURCES?

• What different sources are available online?

• How can you tell if the source is reputable?

• How do you cite this source once you know it is reputable?

WHAT DIFFERENT SOURCES ARE AVAILABLE ONLINE?

According to Virginia Montecino in her article Criteria to Evaluate the Credibility of WWW Resources, there are five different types of sources that are available online. These five types of sources are:

• Personal Home Pages - maintained by individuals. They are often informal. Individuals can post their resumes, link to favorite sites, showcase their interests and ideas. Some personal Web sites also serve as professional sites. For example, many professors publish their syllabi, course material and, in some cases, their scholarship, on their personal Web pages. Entrepreneurs often advertise their services on "home" pages.

(Montecino)

WHAT DIFFERENT SOURCES ARE AVAILABLE ONLINE?

• Special interest sites - maintained by non-profit organizations or activists dealing with special issues, such as environmental concerns, legalization of marijuana, etc. They can be relatively mainstream or radical in interests and vary widely in credibility of information. Special interest sites are, by their nature, biased. When using such sources, your readers should be aware of the source's special interest.

• Professional sites - maintained by institutions/organizations, sometimes by individuals. They can include research, reference sources, fact sheets. Many institutions provide such services to the public. The credibility of the institution or professional credential of the individual providing the facts gives clues as to the reliability of the information. Is the site just linking to sources? If so, the credibility of the information is connected to the originating sites.

(Montecino)

WHAT DIFFERENT SOURCES ARE AVAILABLE ONLINE?

• News and Journalistic sites (E-zines) - which include national, international news, online newspapers, magazines, and "homegrown" Web publications. Anyone can publish his or her own "news," on the Web. What do you know about, or what can you find out about, the reputation of the periodical? Is it an electronic version of a credible print publication? As in print - just because information is published does not necessarily mean it is true. If a periodical article has an ISSN number (International Standard Serial Number), it will probably have more authority.

• Commercial sites - Although many legitimate businesses have Websites, some are not legitimate. Companies, with good and bad reputations, are in the business of making money and acquiring and keeping customers. They are naturally biased in favor of their own products, so watch out for inflated claims for performance and quality. Companies will not showcase their competitors' products. If you are, for example, comparing products, get impartial reviews, not company information. Many entrepreneurs use "rented" Web space to create their own Web sites to sell their services or products - buyer beware! Can you track the reputation of the company?

(Montecino)

HOW CAN YOU TELL IF THE SOURCE IS REPUTABLE?

So now you know what types of sources are available online, how can you tell if your source is reputable?

According to Grace Fleming in her article Internet Research Types on About.com, a good rule of thumb is:

“In most cases, you should stay away from Internet information that doesn't provide the name of an author. While the information contained in the article may be true, it is more difficult to validate information if you don't know the credentials of the author.” (Fleming)

HOW CAN YOU TELL IF THE SOURCE IS REPUTABLE?

A quick way to assess the reputability of an online source is to examine the ending of the URL:

• If the information is linked to an organization, try to determine the reliability of the sponsoring organization. One tip is the url ending. If the site name ends with .edu, it is most likely an educational institution. Even so, you should be aware of political bias.

• If a site ends in .gov, it is most likely a reliable government web site. Government sites are usually good sources for statistics and objective reports.

• Sites that end in .org are usually non-profit organizations. They can be very good sources or very poor sources, so you'll have to take care to research their possible agendas or political biases, if they exist.

(Fleming)

HOW DO YOU CITE THIS SOURCE ONCE YOU KNOW IT IS REPUTABLE?

The first thing to determine is whether you are going to use MLA or APA style.

According to the Purdue OWL MLA Formatting and Style Guide:

“MLA (Modern Language Association) style is most commonly used to write papers and cite sources within the liberal arts and humanities.” (Purdue OWL Staff)

According to the Purdue OWL APA Formatting and Style Guide:

“APA (American Psychological Association) style is most commonly used to cite sources within the social sciences.” (Purdue OWL Staff)

HOW DO YOU CITE THIS SOURCE ONCE YOU KNOW IT IS REPUTABLE?

In MLA format you will need:

• Author and/or editor names (if available)

• Article name in quotation marks (if applicable)

• Title of the Website, project, or book in italics. (Remember that some Print publications have Web publications with slightly different names. They may, for example, include the additional information or otherwise modified information, like domain names [e.g. .com or .net].)

• Any version numbers available, including revisions, posting dates, volumes, or issue numbers.

• Publisher information, including the publisher name and publishing date.

• Take note of any page numbers (if available).

• Medium of publication.

• Date you accessed the material.

• URL (if required, or for your own personal reference; MLA does not require a URL).

(Purdue OWL Staff)

HOW DO YOU CITE THIS SOURCE ONCE YOU KNOW IT IS REPUTABLE?

In APA style, you will need many of the same things to cite a source that you would need for APA style. However, in APA style, the specific type of source impacts how you cite this source. With all the different types of sources available online, it is important that you know how to cite each one specifically.

For an extensive list of these 26 different types of sources and how to cite each one individually, an excellent source is the Purdue OWL Apa stylebook, specifically their article titled: Reference List: Electronic Sources (Web Publications). It can be found here:

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/10/

HOW DO YOU CITE THIS SOURCE ONCE YOU KNOW IT IS REPUTABLE?

Now, to present the information that you’ve found, let’s use the Purdue OWL as an example:

For APA:

Contributors' names. "Title of Resource." The Purdue OWL. Purdue U Writing Lab, Last edited date. Web. Date of access.

For MLA:

Contributors' names (Last edited date). Title of resource. Retrieved from http://Web address for OWL resource

(Purdue OWL Staff)

WORKS CITED• Fleming, G. (2013). Internet research tips. Retrieved from

http://homeworktips.about.com/od/researchandreference/a/internet.htm

• Joshua M. Paiz, Elizabeth Angeli, Jodi Wagner, Elena Lawrick, Kristen Moore, Michael Anderson, Lars Soderlund, Allen Brizee, Russell Keck (9 Sept. 2013). Reference list: electronic sources (web publications). Retrieved from https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/10/

• Russell, Tony, Allen Brizee, and Elizabeth Angeli (4 Apr. 2010). MLA formatting and style guide. Retrieved from https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/1/

• Virginia, M. (1998, August). Criteria to evaluate the credibility of www resources. Retrieved from http://mason.gmu.edu/~montecin/web-eval-sites.htm