Skip to Main Content

Ethnic Studies African American Studies

Evaluating Website Information

Evaluation of web information is crucial. Many websites may be full of information, but that information may or may not be appropriate for scholarly research. Before using a website for your research papers, consider using the following criteria.

Evaluating Web Sources

  • Is the information accurate?
  • Who is the intended audience? Is this meant for scholars such as yourself?
  • Who is/are the author(s)? What are their qualifications or credentials?
  • Is there a bias or slant to the information? Is the information presented objectively, or has the author(s) taken a side?
  • How current is the information? Has it been updated recently? Is there new information

Some ways to get a better pool of websites to choose from include; limiting the web domain to .edu or .gov (try this in google scholar linked below), selected websites from professional organizations (Society for American Archaeology, etc), and using websites linked from Library research pages like this one.

Last Updated: Jan 22, 2024 3:11 PM