*Quality of Web Sources

How to Determine the Quality of a Web Source:

The more of the following you can check off for a source, the more likely it is to be a reliable source. If you can't get AT LEAST three of the following, you should NOT use that source for schoolwork.

1. Reliable web extension?
   1. An extension is the part at the end of the primary URL. Some very common ones are:
      1. .com - "Commercial" - Unverified; available to anyone
      2. .org - "Organization" - Unverified; available to anyone
      3. .net - "Network" - Unverified; available to anyone
      4. .gov - "Government"; specifically, U.S. government - Only granted to verified U.S. govt. institutions.
      5. .edu - "Education" - Only granted to a verified educational institution.
2. Reliable publisher, editor, and/or author?
   1. There are .com and .net and .org organizations that are generally pretty reliable, like NYTimes.com, MSNBC.com, Time.com, etc.
   2. If you can't find an author's name, or if you can't find a name that is not a web handle, that is pretty shady.
3. Recent publication date?
   1. If the info is old, look for a more recent source.
   2. If you can't determine when the info was made available to the public, that should raise a red flag.
4. Agrees with similar sources?
   1. If Source A does not agree with Source B, check Source C, Source D, and Source E - the ones that agree may be more reliable.
5. Good grammar and spelling?
   1. It's not iron-clad, but more reliable sources tend to be well-written and have few errors.
   2. Rule of Thumb: More errors = less reliable.

Wikipedia meets very few of these requirements (the most important of which is that there's no way to tell if the author of the articles is reliable; but also there is not a clear publication date for the various pieces included in an article, there are often many grammatical issues) - that's why you should not use Wikipedia as a source for schoolwork information.

BUT, if you go to the bottom of a Wikipedia page, there should be a list of "References". Follow the links back to the original sources of the Wikipedia information and use the checklist above to decide if those are reliable sources.