Evaluating Resources: A Report in Determining Credibility

Searching Google: Chart to help you narrow your search

Search Technique

Definition of Technique How-To Example

Phrase Search Include an exact phrase

Put quotation marks around your search termsCaution: using phrase search may cause you to miss some results by accident, for example, "Alexander Bell" will omit pages that contain "Alexander G. Bell"

"The Beatles""George Washington"

Positive Terms Search exactly as is Add a plus (+) sign in front of the words you definitely want to include Henry +VIII

Negative Terms

Terms you want to exclude

Add a minus (-) sign in front of the words related to the meaning you want to avoid salsa -dance

OR Search Find pages that include either of two search terms Add an uppercase OR between the terms Istanbul OR

Constantinople

Domain Searches

Search within one specific website

Specifiy a whole class of sites

Include the word "site" and a colon followed by the site name

Or include the word "site" and a colon followed by the desired domain type

site:www.cnn.comsite:nytimes.comsite:.edusite:.gov

Fill in the Blanks

Find pages with information to fill in missing words

Use an asterisk (*) as a placeholder for any unknown terms

Shakespeare married * in *

OccurrencesSpecify where your search term occurs on the page

Include the modifier "intitle" or "inurl" followed by a colon and the word you want to specify

intitle:literatureinurl:wiki

Similar WordsSearch for similar words or synonyms to your search terms

Add a tilde (~) in front of the search term search ~tips

File Search Search for specified file format

Include the modifier "filetype" followed by a colon and the abbreviation for the kind of file you want

filetype:pdffiletype:ppt

Linked Pages Find pages that link to a specific site

Include the word "link" followed by a colon and the url of the site link:npr.org

Related Search Find web pages that are similar or related to the url

Include the word "related" followed by a colon and the url of the site related:bbc.co.uk

Definition Define a word or term

Use the word "define" followed by a colon and the word or term you want defined

You can also send a text message to Googl with the message "define:term"

define:epistemology

Evaluating Websites: I’ve found a great site, now what?

Information from online sources should be timely, relevant, valid, reliable, and credible—it’s your job to determine if the sites meet these requirements.

Locate website and run the domain through http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/index.jsp

Type the domain name into the search box (leave out extra marks like / and -). For practice we’ll search Coppellisd.com

Notice the search brings up a page of information that includes site lease, contact information, updating information, as well as when the site was first leased and the current expiration date. Just by looking at our school website we can see some reasons that this site is “credible”. Describe those reasons in the box below:

So, why is this step important? Let’s find out…

Coppellisd.com is a credible site (based on the information to the left) because…

Check out this site: (martinlutherking.org). The screenshot below shows you the content of the first page. Just look and see what you think! What are some things you notice about this site?

Now, let’s run a whois search on this website and see what we find. Notice that the information is less forthcoming. But we do get a name of the registrant organization: StormFront. Let’s Google this name to see what comes up…WHITE SUPREMACIST

ORGANIZATION! WHAT?! How does this change the credibility of the martinlutherking.org site? Why is checking the credibility of sources an important step?

For any internet sources (excluding GALE/EBSCO), you need to

create an internet source report.

Notice how this organization is keeping most of the information hidden—that’s probably an indication that they’re not a credible source!!!

Evaluating Sources: Internet Report

Student Name(s):

Date:

URL:

Who is the host organization?

When was the site last updated?

How did you find this source? Describe the search that you led to it.

What evidence can you present that proves this source credible (include references to authors/creators and governing organizations)? How are you sure that this is a credible source?

What links are on this site and what sites link to this site?