How Not to Be Misled Doing Research On the Internet

AUTHOR*ITY

As a virtual publishing arena, the World Wide Web challenges the meaning of the word "authority". The author on the web has the freedom of communicating their ideas without the academic or peer filters that exist in the print world of published literary works. On one hand, this permits greater representation and individualization of ideas. On the other hand, with such freedoms comes the choas of evaluating a literary perspective without any cover flap review or press reputation to judge this virtual text with. One must be a skeptical surfer. The scholarly researcher, such as a Swarthmore student, need not become overwhelmed and [disgustedly] shy away from the web as a resource. Don't let the Internet intimidate you! Fortunately, there are responsible internet users out there that are working to pave retraceable paths for other users to find accurate, current, useful information. Search engines (especially ones with relevancy ratings), Virtual Libraries , and web sites devoted specifically to evaluating other sites exist explicitly to help the researcher to search in the right direction.

Ways to ensure your search goes the direction you want it to go:

1.) What are you looking for? Decide this before you get online to avoid rambling, distracted, snowballing surfing (while this may be helpful and spontaneous, it has the danger of being wastefully time consuming). What medium will be most useful to you?

A.) Personal (a.k.a vanity) web pages can provide you with helpful dialogue on current issues (especially controversial ones) with a range of individual perspectives. Organization web pages can provide you with useful links, perhaps even direct email contacts to authorities. This medium has the most potential for misleading information. Be sure to think of who the author is (expertise?), who they are connected to (a reputable organization?). Compare their page with others (what biases can you recognize?). Are there better resources out there (i.e. a more specific organization?). Who is the intended audience (the lay person? the expert?).

B.) Periodicals can give you a range in types of articles from substantive news/general interest, popular, sensational, to scholarly.

C.) Besides the tricollege library engine Tripod to conventionally obtain a resource through the library, books can be ordered and even reviewed on the web. Amazon.com is unique with its open forum book reviews. Any lay person can comment on a book, they don't have to be a professional book reviewer.

A.) Swarthmore's Librarian categorically selected pages: Internet Reference Resources (we can trust their scholarly judgement). You can also go straight to Exploring the Internet for indexes and full text resources.

B.) Selection by Yahoo!: On Yahoo's home page they have a directory which differs from a search engine in that web pages at large are arranged and searchable categorically. For example, for the topic "Biology" they have anything from anatomy to zoology. You select the category and then search within zoology (for example).

-use '+' to require inclusion of word(s) and a '-' for exclusion of word(s)
-use quotation marks to search a phrase
-truncation symbol is *
-yahoo has a direct link to Alta Vista if you don't find anything.

C.) Search Engines: "Spiders" (i.e. web crawlers) patrolling the web finding sources that match closest to your word being searched. If it is a good search engine it will have a help or frequently asked questions page.

a.) Alta Vista This is the largest search engine so be as specific as possible in your search word. Use the notations to limit your search:
-quotation marks for searching a phrase (i.e. "human cloning").
-use a '+' before the term to require inclusion of word(s) and use a ' ' to exclude words (i.e "ethics + human cloning").
-beware: there is no duplicate detection
-truncation symbol is * ("human clon*)

b.) Hotbot This search engine covers over 54 million URLs.
-provided relevancy rating with the best listed first
-no truncation is available
-can use Boolean logic: select parameters in the box (ALL the words (automatically done), ANY of the words, etc.) or you can select "Boolean phrase" and type in your own Boolean Operators (and, or, not).

c.) Infoseek This is a web directory (for over 50 million URLs) which has been around for a long time and is well respected. The relevancy ratings are based on the number of times your search word is in the source as well as where within the text your word is located. Greater relevancy will be given for the word being in the title.
-use quotations marks to search a phrase to limit the search
-matching ALL the words searched is automatically done

d.) Meta Crawler This "meta-engine" searches several search engines and guides at once including Yahoo!, WebCrawler, InfoSeek, and Alta Vista. The biggest "beware" advice for this one is you will miss a lot of information if you only search on this Meta Crawler.

Evaluating the Reliability of the Web Site You Find

1.) The unreliable author: nothing says that the author isn't relying on junk science. After all, it's virtual, nobody knows where you live or what you look like, why not play with people's minds? [this being the justification for promotion of false information]. Take home message: just because it is in print doesn't mean it's for real!

2.) Out of date, static information: check first to see when the page was last updated. If a link leads to a dead end that is usually an indication of neglect. The web has been around for at least five years, and some initial enthusiasts may have dropped their mouse and left the virtual playground with their page still lying around.

*The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: Why it is a good idea to evaluate Web Sources.
*University of Albany's Evaluating Internet Resources provides a nice checklist of what to remember when using internet sources.
*Smith, Alastair G. "Testing the Surf: Criteria for Evaluating Internet Information Resources." The Public-Access Computer Systems Review 8, no. 3 (1997)
* Bibliography on Evaluating Internet Resources

Citing The Electronic Resource You've Found

With hourly metamorphosis going on, pages that may be here today may not be here tomorrow. Get all the info you need at once, including the proper citation. Even download a copy. Be sure to check with your professor before using a web resource. For example, my Invertebrate Zoology professor the other day mentioned we could use the web to get ideas for a paper assignment, but we couldn't cite the information because there is no way of knowing whether or not the information on the web is correct.

Here is an example: (note that the last date mentioned is the date that YOU looked at the page)

Sheridan, Rob. (1997, January 5- last update). The Unofficial Dancing Baby Homepage. Available: http://www.nwlink.com/~xott/baby.htm [1998, Febuary 16].