Credibility of Internet Material

Growing up in High School I was part of a local debate league. In the beginning it was all learning and getting into the process, but the deeper I got into debate the more I realized the importance of good evidence and facts. If your evidence was not from a credible source, your whole case could not be taken seriously and the chances of you winning were slim to none.

The article “Criteria to Evaluate the Credibility of WWW Resources” looks at the hard facts on how complicated finding good resources on the internet can be. There are three points I would like to make on the importance of this article.

The first is just realizing the fact that anything can be put on the internet. If you do not evaluate everything you look at and cite then you almost automatically lose credibility with your audience. Going into your research this is the most important point to know.

The second is knowing the types of websites that are out there. Going into research knowing you are looking for a local news story helps you narrow down your range of search. This will help you know where to start looking and eliminate issues up front.

The third is knowing domain names. When looking at news stories, for example, you are likely looking at a common .com vs a government site, which would be .gov. In research you can eliminate most sites by just looking at web-addresses.