Evaluating Web Sites
When searching for information
on the web for a college-level research paper, you must
proceed with caution. Many professors do not allow websites
to be used in research papers. If they are allowed, they
must be carefully evaluated. Before using information found
on the web, you should speak to your professor about its
appropriateness and value as a source for an academic paper.
For a good guide on how to
evaluate web sites, see the Web Page Checklist.
Searching the web
1. For Current Events and News, see the Hot Topics wepage.
2. . For late-breaking news, factual information and quick statistics: Virtual Reference Collection.
3. Advocacy organizations related to your topic can be great
sources of information. Just remember to keep their bias
in mind. A list of some organizations can be found on the Google Directory.
4. Our librarians have useful websites on our Subject Resources page. Just choose your subject (such as Health Services) and then click where it says "Subject Guides" to get to list of web page guides.
5. For links to health-related websites, try the Heathfinder.gov site. Or try the National Institute on Drug Abuse site for drug related informatio
6. Try the advanced search screens of search engines. With
advance searching you can often use Boolean Logic and limit
results to just .gov (government) or .edu (education) sites.
This tend to be more reliable then .com (which support consumer
sites and "homemade" sites such as AOL members).
All information taken from the web must be cited, just as you must cite all articles and books used in your research!
