Determine the Web site's relevance and reliability by asking yourself the following questions:
You can often tell what kind of organization is providing the information by looking at the domain name of the web site address. Common domain types include: edu (educational), org (organization) and com (commercial). You can generally trust educational or government websites. In Google, you can limit your search to a particular domain. For example, to limit a search on environment to educational sites only, use the Google Advanced Search and type edu on the "Search within a site or domain line."
Are the author's credentials given on the site? If not, you may need to check biographical sources to identify the author.
Find out something about the site's sponsor by going to its home page or by looking up the organization in a source such as Gale Group's Associations Unlimited.
Does the author or sponsor show prejudice or have a particular bias?
Is the purpose to educate, entertain, or sell?
Sometimes, information is not recent because the web site has not been updated for years. In some situations, such as historical or critical research, timeliness might not be too important.
You might need to verify the information by looking in other sources.
A bibliography is a good clue.
A good website usually has links within the content of the article to lead you to further information on your subject. If the document's links are "dead," the site might be an old one.
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