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Websites seem pretty straightforward, don't they? When you search Google, all of the results you get go to different websites, right? Actually, no – or maybe. It kinda depends on how you define 'website.'
Why are websites so confusing?
Why are websites so confusing?
Part of the problem has to do with the word 'website' because it is regularly used in two different ways - as a location and as a type of source.
A 'website' can mean a location
A 'website' can mean a location
As you know, all content on the internet has a specific location designated by a internet address called a URL (uniform resource locator). We commonly call this location a 'website.' For clarity, let's call it a website-location. So, any content on the internet that has its own internet address is presented to you from a website-location. Got it?
What types of content are we talking about? All of the following and more:
online versions of newspapers like The New York Times
online versions of magazines like National Geographic
online versions of journals like Journal of Visual Culture
online versions of books such as those found on Google Books
the internet presence for a company, organization, educational institution, government agency etc. (such as the website for company ExxonMobil)
blogs for fitness, gaming, cooking, auto repair, finance, news, etc. such as: Nick's Car Blog, HuffPost, or The Penny Hoarder
online reference tools like Wikipedia or Internet Movie Database
Above you see an online journal article. (This is the HTML version, not the PDF version, but you could click the red button to download the PDF version.) This article is available on the internet from this website- location: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1470412920906259
As you can see from the list above, the content available from website-locations is highly variable and includes traditional sources like newspaper articles, magazines, journal articles, and books.
A 'website' can mean a type of source
A 'website' can mean a type of source
We also use the word 'website' to refer to a particular type of source that's distinct from traditional sources like books, journal articles, etc. For clarity, let's call it a website-source. A website-source is a collection of related, hyperlinked pages devoted to a specific topic or purpose, and created and maintained by an individual, organization, educational institution, company, etc. Note the word 'maintained' in that definition. That word indicates that websites change and get updated – so they're not static, they're dynamic – and this is one of their unique qualities. Collectively these qualities make this source unique and distinct from other types of traditional sources like books and journal articles.
To the left you see the homepage of the website for the American Fancy Rat and Mouse Association. This is a classic example of a website as a type of source, which we are calling a website-source.
Website-sources are a relatively recent addition to the array of information sources we’ve discussed earlier in this lesson; this type of source only came into existence after the internet was born.
Even though the online journal article that you saw above and the fancy rat and mouse website you see to the left are both delivered from website-locations, only the fancy rat and mouse website has the unique qualities of a website-source. In fact, think of the fancy rat and mouse site as a true website. If you were to cite it in a paper you were writing, you would cite it using the format for citing websites.
In contrast, while traditional sources like books and journal articles are presented from website locations, don't think of them as true websites. These sources still maintain their integrity as traditional sources even when they are delivered to you through the internet. In other words, a book is still a book, and a journal article is still a journal article, regardless of whether you are reading it in print or viewing it from a website-location.
Let's revisit the list you saw at the beginning of this lesson and note in bold red lettering the sort of content that would typically be considered a website-source. Notice that the first four sources on the list don't qualify, but the last three do:
online versions of newspapers like The New York Times
online versions of magazines like National Geographic
online versions of journals like Journal of Visual Culture
online versions of books such as those found on Google Books
the internet presence for a company, organization, educational institution, government agency etc. (such as the website for company ExxonMobil)
blogs for fitness, gaming, cooking, auto repair, finance, news, etc. such as: Nick's Car Blog, HuffPost, or The Penny Hoarder
online reference tools like Wikipedia or Internet Movie Database
QUESTION 1. People use the word 'website' in two ways, as a type of source and as a suitcase.
true
false
Domain names help keep websites organized...sort of, but not really
Domain names help keep websites organized...sort of, but not really
All websites get assigned domain names like .com, .org, .edu, .gov, .int, etc., and these domain names show up in each website's address. This is true for website-sources as well as for all content presented on website-locations. Domain names help delineate internet content into broad categories, but not in a way that is particularly organized, consistent, or useful for promoting information literacy.
In fact, domain names give the false impression that all content presented on the internet is a website-source that represents an entity, like the American Fancy Rat and Mouse Association, whose homepage you saw above. Here are some more examples showing how domain names capture and represent entities:
Companies (.com) such as Tesla (https.www.tesla.com)
Organizations (.org) such as the American Fancy Rat and Mouse Association (http://www.afrma.org/)
U.S. educational institutions (.edu) such as Northern Arizona University (https://nau.edu/)
U.S. government agencies (.gov) such as NASA (https://www.nasa.gov/)
Intergovernmental organizations (.int) such as the World Health Organization (https://www.who.int)
The thing is, the internet consists of much more than just homepages for entities like companies, organizations, educational institutions, etc. – it also consists of a wide variety of services and functions like social networking sites, bookmarking sites, databases, etc. Unfortunately, domain names don't capture these differences in function.
For example, the .org site shown below provides The American Literature Association with an internet presence and includes 'brochure-like' content highlighting the organization's services, resources, membership, etc.
While the .org site show below (HathiTrust) provides a database for searching and reading digitized books. The function of this website is completely different! Can you see how it might have made more sense to create a domain category for databases (such as .dbs) and give this site a .dbs domain instead of a .org domain?
The .com domain is even more variable! It isn't just used for designating the website of a company - rather, it covers an enormous spectrum of content with different functions. For example, all the different types of content below are given a dot-com domain:
A commerce site like Amazon.com
Blogs - such as those for fitness, gaming, cooking, auto repair, finance, news, etc. Here are some examples: Nick's Car Blog, Huffington Post, The Penny Hoarder
The online version of a newspaper like The New York Times
The online version of a magazine like The Atlantic
The online version of a journal like Brain and Behavior
An online reference tool like Internet Movie Database
Social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Digitized book sites like Google Books.
And much more!
Imagine you landed on the website-location for a journal article, and it had a .jnl domain name instead of a .com domain. Wouldn't that be sensible and make it a whole lot easier for you to understand what you are viewing? It would also make it much easier to understand how to cite the content you are viewing. If you know you are looking at a journal article because it has a .jnl domain name, then you know to cite it as a journal article, instead of citing it as a website. Unfortunately, it would take a massive effort to organize, define, and assign these new and improved domain names, so we're probably stuck with things the way they are.
In the absence of sensible domain names, it's really important for you to be able to recognize the type of source you are viewing on the internet so that you can cite it properly.
QUESTION 2. Not every source you find on the internet is a website. Ok, but why care? Because when you need to cite something you found on the internet, you'll need to know what type of source it is to create an appropriate citation.
true
false
QUESTION 3. Open the links below and then see if you can match them to the appropriate source listed to the right.
A. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/76213#page/15/mode/1up
B. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0185809
C. https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-border-patrol-death-20181225-story.html
(Answer at bottom of page.)-magazine article
-book
-journal article
-website
-newspaper article
The internet has pretty much EVERYTHING, right?
The internet has pretty much EVERYTHING, right?
It's true that the internet now has over one billion websites and it delivers up online versions of the types of sources described in previous sections of this lesson. However, the internet doesn't provide access to ALL books, newspaper articles, magazine articles, and journal articles. In fact, coverage is pretty spotty. Why is that?
Many sources are products you must buy. Even though they might have an online presence, they are not necessarily freely available and accessible to you when you search the internet.
Also, many sources are not even digitized, so they have NO internet presence.
And, many sources are not available to view on the internet because of copyright restrictions.
"In 1994, there were fewer than three thousand websites online. By 2014, there were more than one billion sites. Most of them are searchable and will arrive before your eyes in mere seconds, regardless of their quality."
-from Tom Nichols' The Death of ExpertiseBut, can't you usually find ENOUGH decent information just by searching the internet?
But, can't you usually find ENOUGH decent information just by searching the internet?
Maybe. Maybe not. Problems tend to arise around issues of quality and credibility, which you'll explore in the next lesson – but you already got a sense of this on the first page of this lesson. You learned that websites are so abundant and variable in their intended audience and purpose that it's hard to know, without actually exploring them, whether they'll fulfill your information need. Plus many of them are downright awful. Building a website is cheap, so the internet offers up a platform for pretty much anyone to present useless and silly information to the world.
FYI, libraries specialize in providing access to high-quality information sources that the internet doesn't provide for free.
FYI, libraries specialize in providing access to high-quality information sources that the internet doesn't provide for free.
Libraries pay to make all sorts of published books and articles available to you that you would not be able to access otherwise. That's why you'll hear your instructors encourage you to "Use the library to find sources." In fact you might hear them say that over and over and over again. Don't worry, you'll learn how to use Cline Library resources in Lesson 6.
QUESTION 4. The best reason for NOT relying exclusively on the internet for all of your information needs is:
A. It's easy to get addicted to the internet for everything, so you should fight your inclination to constantly use it. Be strong, my friend!
B. Variety is the spice of life.
C. The best sources to resolve a particular information need might not be available on the internet.
D. Relying exclusively on the internet for all of your information needs makes you rather one-dimensional and unimaginative and maybe a tiny-bit lazy.
(Answer at bottom of page.)QUESTION 5. Below are four different information needs. For two of them, answers are unlikely to be found doing Google searches. Which two are they?
A. Who won the 2018 World Cup?
B. Which types of community services or programs are most effective at helping people with mental illness find and retain housing?
C. What are the symptoms of chicken pox?
D. How does the moral psychology depicted in the literature of ancient Greece differ from contemporary moral psychology - and why has it changed over time?
(Answer at bottom of page.)
Ok, so what did you get out of Lesson 2?
Ok, so what did you get out of Lesson 2?
You should be able to state how different types of information sources serve different information needs and how this helps you find information more efficiently and effectively.
You should be able to discuss the purpose of journal articles and conference papers and you should be able to recognize them when you come across them.
You should now understand that internet searches retrieve results that represent different types of sources.
You should know what clues to look for to identify what type of source you are looking at in its print form or online.
You should be able to list some of the disadvantages of relying on internet searching and websites for all of your information needs.
You are finished with Lesson 2.
You are finished with Lesson 2.
What's next?
What's next?
1) You can proceed to Lesson 3, or if you need to show you've mastered this lesson, you must take the test.
2) To take the tests associated with this lesson, go to the LINKS TO ALL TESTS page and follow the instructions you see there. You should also DOCUMENT YOUR COMPLETION of tutorial tests.
3) Before you take the tests and/or move on to the next lesson, please fill out the adjacent survey to share your thoughts about Lesson 2! Note that the survey is anonymous so your name and email are not being collected or shared.
THANK YOU!!
THANK YOU!!
Answers to questions on this page:Question 1. falseQuestion 2. trueQuestion 3. A= book; B= journal article; C= newspaper article; D= website; E= magazine article Question 4.CQuestion 5. B and D
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