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What do Yogi Berra, Niels Bohr, Samuel Goldwyn, Dan Quayle and Mark Twain have in common? According to Google results, they all are responsible for the saying, "Prediction is difficult, especially about the future." David Donald, training director for Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc. and the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting, uses that example to underscore a huge problem with the information you find online: Much of it is unreliable. "Keep journalism's core values in mind, especially skepticism, whenever you're on the Net," Donald says. "The ease of finding answers can create a ‘gee whiz, isn't this great' approach. Misinformation abounds out there, and even veteran journalists have let their guards down just because they forget that the Internet has no editor." The library at the University of California at Berkeley has created a tipsheet for "Evaluating Web Pages: Techniques to Apply & Questions to Ask:" http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Evaluate.html That tipsheet recommends a five-step process for evaluating a Web page: 1. What can the URL tell you? Federal-government Web pages, with domains that end in ".gov", are generally more reliable than personal Web pages, whose addresses often include a tilde ( ~ ). 2. Scan the perimeter of the page, looking for information about who wrote the page and when it was created. What are the author's credentials? Is the page current or out of date? 3. Look for indicators of quality information, including documented sources and links to other resources on the topic. 4. What do others say? See which Web sites link to the page you're evaluating. Google and AltaVista both contain instructions for doing such searches. 5. Does it all add up? Could the site be parody or satire? Was it posted by someone with an ax to grind? Mary Ann Bell, an assistant professor of library science at Sam Houston State University, has developed a list of hoax Web sites: http://www.shsu.edu/~lis_mah/documents/TCEA/hoaxtable.html The list includes: Feline Reactions to Bearded Men http://www.improb.com/airchives/classical/cat/cat.html Dihydrogen Monoxide Research Division By the way ... it was Yogi Berra who said, "Prediction is difficult, especially about the future." |