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Evaluating Websites
How Do You Know if that Web Page
ADDs UP?
A Basic Web Page
Anatomy of a URL
The name of the server where the web page is
stored. This is also called the domain name.
http://
www.stmarysschool.org
academics uppersc_library.asp
The folder on the server in which the page is stored.
The name of the individual web page.
Try This One
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/lasc/hd_lasc.htm
What’s the What
• On a server called
www.metmuseum.org
– There is a folder called toah in which there
is
• A folder called hd in which there is
– A folder called lasc in which there is
» A document called hd_lasc.htm
What Can We Learn from a URL?
• What server hosts the page
• Evidence that it is a personal page
a name followed by a ~ or a %
the word members or people in the URL
the word blog in the URL
• What kind of domain it is from
College or university: .edu
The government or military: .gov or .mil
A nonprofit organization: .org
A network: .net A commercial organization: .com
Thinking about Web Sites
Questoning URLs
• Do you recognize the domain?
• Does this domain make sense for the content of the
page?
• If it is a personal page, is the author qualified to give
this information? Is the information biased?
• If it is a .com, .net or .org, remember anyone can get
one of these pages. Why should you trust this
information?
What can we tell about this website?
http://www.msu.edu/~cloudsar/nrweb.htm
Does that Web Site
A is for Author
D is for Documentation
D is for Date
ADD UP?
U is for Use by others
P is for Purpose
Authors Should Be
• Clearly stated with contact information
available
– you may need to go back to the homepage to
determine this
– may be an individual or an organization
• Qualified to provide information on the
content of the website
Documentation Should Be
Provided
• bibliographies, references, notes, or
other citations that let you know where
the author got this information
• links to other sites should be relevant
and work correctly
Dates Should Be…
• Appropriate for the time sensitiveness of
the topic you are researching.
• Available for any kind of statistic. If a
statistic does not have a date, don’t use
it.
Use by others
• Do a Google links search to see who
links to this site
– Are there plenty of links?
– Are links from .edu and .org sites?
Purpose
• Clear
– easily determined
– may have to return to homepage to find
• Is the purpose to
–
–
–
–
Inform?
Persuade?
Sell?
Humor?
• Is there a hidden agenda?