When you're working on a scholarly research project, you want to be sure and locate the very best and most relevant information available. The challenge for you as a researcher is that not every information source is reliable or even true. This is especially the case with online resources. Anyone out there can create a website that says anything they want it to. Most websites lack serious quality control, things like fact checking or even basic editing. The result: GIGO, i.e sites that provide biased, outdated and unreliable/incorrect information. Protecting yourself and the validity of your research requires critical thinking: the careful evaluation of all the information you find, no matter how credible the source may appear. It's never a good idea to turn off your brain!
The questions below are the ones you need to be asking yourself as you're trying to determine the credibility of any information source, but especially one you've run across online. It may take a little time, but you can save yourself a lot of embarassment.
WHO
WHAT
WHEN
WHERE
WHY
DOES
IS
Google Chrome: Safe Browsing Check
"Google’s Safe Browsing technology examines billions of URLs per day looking for unsafe websites. Every day, we discover thousands of new unsafe sites, many of which are legitimate websites that have been compromised. When we detect unsafe sites, we show warnings on Google Search and in web browsers. You can search to see whether a website is currently dangerous to visit."
CyberNews Article About Fake Websites
Six ways to tell if a website is a fake.
BBB: How to Identify a Fake Website
Tips from the Better Business Bureau on how to tell a real website from a fake.
McAfee Warning
If you're using McAfee and you get a notification like the one below, WATCH OUT! The website you're on may not be safe to visit.
Purdue University's Online Writing Lab (OWL) has an excellent section on Evaluating Sources. The areas covered by OWL include:
