Credibility of the WWW

Credibility can be very hard to distinguish in many cases. What makes something credible? Are there ways to know if it is credible?

Because anybody can post on the World Wide Web, we, as researchers have to know what internet information is credible. According to Criteria to Evaluate the Credibility of WWW Resources, “developing a keen sense of the credibility of sources, based on such clues as connection of the author to the subject, audience, source of publication, and documentation of supporting evidence, can also help you evaluate print and other types of sources.” Upon deciding whether or not the information that we are reading is true, there are serious of questions we must ask ourselves.

Does the author of what we are reading appear to have any background in what he/ she is writing on? When trying to figure out whether the information is credible, it helps to know the authors qualifications and connections on the given subject. Many who write on sites are generally giving a biased opinion that may or may not be true.

Another question we may have to ask ourselves is if the website is what we are looking for. There are so many types of sites (personal, special interest, news and journalistic, etc.) that what we may be looking for might be found in a news site; however, we are looking at a commercial site.

Knowing if sites are credible has been ongoing issue that all people struggle with. Figuring out how to determine if a site is credible or not takes time and practice. It may be so, that in time it becomes easy to regulate what sites are, or are not credible, but it is worth putting forth the effort to try.