How to you Verify a Source?

You found a lot of information on the internet. Now, how do you know it's good information? When you meet someone in the street do you immediately believe their story? How do you figure out if they're legit? You need the same "street smarts" when you evaluate internet web sites. Read today's handout (see below) to learn ways to evaluate web sites.

What Does Good Research Look Like?

In order to do good research, there are some skills and techniques you have to practice. In today's class we began to identify those methods. As a class, we came up with the following strategies that are essential for good Internet research:

CHOOSE A GOOD SEARCH ENGINE:

I recommend Google. There are other many other search engines, but if you want to use another one, ask me, and we'll look at it together to decide if it's a good one to use for the type of research that you're conducting.

BE CAREFUL ABOUT HOW YOU PHRASE YOUR SEARCH.
When you type your search terms into the search engine (for instance, Google):
• Use correct grammar and spelling
• Be as specific as possible
• Be thorough
• Narrow your search, so you get exactly what you want

Vary your search terms. For example, when researching early rap: “KRS1” or “KRS One” or “Chris Parker” or “Kris Parker,” or other things associated with him, like
the term “Edutainment” could work to get you the results you’re looking for.
Use quotation marks around your search term, if the words have to go together. For example, Chris Parker becomes “Chris Parker,” so that you don’t get everyone named Chris, and all the Parkers in the world.
When you type words in, your search engine is going to search for all those words in addition to those words in combination. So, for example,

prom dresses Spanish Harlem

will result in Google searching for everything that has the word "prom," the word "dresses," the word "Spanish" and the word "Harlem," in addition to looking for "prom dresses" and "Spanish Harlem."

In order to get ONLY prom dresses in Spanish Harlem, you would need to put each phrase in quotes. That tells the search engine to only look for those words in those exact combinations. So you can search Google by typing in

"prom dresses" "Spanish Harlem"

However, there may be stores in Spanish Harlem that are not listed because they do not use the phrase "Spanish Harlem" in their own pages. Perhaps they use "Upper East Side," or "East Harlem" or simply list the street on which they are located, like "3rd Avenue," or "Third Avenue," or "116th Street" or "116 St". All of these are different search terms. If you really want to find a place in Spanish Harlem, you may have to try all these things. ALSO, A LOT OF STORES, INSTITUTIONS, and BOOKS DO NOT HAVE WEBSITES. Everything that exists is not online. A person might have a store and not make a website for it.
We found out that a lot of stores in Spanish Harlem that sell prom dresses do not have websites. That does not mean they do not exist. Lots of places that exist are not online.

WHEN TRYING TO FIND DETAILED INFORMATION OR READ A BOOK, REMEMBER:
Sometimes you actually have to go to a library to read a document or book on the topic. Usually, entire books are not online, especially new ones. The only entire books that are online are public domain books (like Shakespeare, Chaucer, etc). You can find many public domain books online at Project Gutenberg. You can also check out authorama.com.

WHO CREATED THE WEBSITE?
Find out who wrote the information on the website, and write down those details.

ASK YOURSELF: Who are they? Who is the author of the website? What organization or group is behind it?

ARE THEY REPUTABLE?
• Have you already heard about the authors or institutions behind the website and do you know that they're reputable already? (for instance, students suggested that one might go to merriam-webster.com, because we already know that they are a good company that publishes dictionaries.)
• Always verify your information by looking at more than one reputable source.
• Read the information on the website carefully. Is it sound? Does it make sense? Does it seem credible?
• Determine who wrote the website by looking at “Contact Us,” or “About Us,” or the citations and bibliography at the bottom, or
• Verify your source by making sure you look at more than one source.

ARE THEY RELIABLE?
• Is there a second website that confirms the information on that website?
• When did they update their page last?
• Google the owner and/or author.

WHAT DOES THE URL TELL YOU?
• Go back to the root directory of the website to see who hosted it. For example, in the url: http://www.columbia.edu/texts/religion/philosophy.html, the root directory is www.columbia.edu. When looking at the root directory, look for the type of website it is. You can find that out by looking at the letters that come after the first dot. For example:

o .org = organization (non-profit)
o .edu = college or university (- usually. Sometimes it’s a school system.)
o .net = is a commercial designation. (In other words, anyone can get it.)
o .com = company or commercial. Anyone can have one.
o .gov = U.S. Government web site.
o .info = information about some agency or group.
Two letter codes, are country codes, but they are commercial.
o .uk = United Kingdom (also called Great Britain).
o .ca = Canada
o .tv = Tuvalu
o de = Germany
o fr = France