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- ECO 211: Principles of Microeconomics
- Website Evaluation
ECO 211: Principles of Microeconomics: Website Evaluation
Try Lateral Reading to Evaluate Websites
- Lateral Reading VideoLateral Reading is a great first step to take when you are trying to evaluate a website. Is the website accurate? Is it a biased source? Try lateral reading!
Video from the University of Louisville Libraries Citizen Literacy Series.
Creative Commons License CC by NC 4.0
Citizen Literacy was created by Robert Detmering, Amber Willenborg, and Terri Holtze for University of Louisville Libraries and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
Additional tips on website credibility.
Not all websites are as they seem...
Once you've done some investigation by lateral reading, there are some additional steps you can take to assess a website. When doing scholarly research look carefully at each website to determine the following:
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Currency
• When was it published or posted?
• Has is been revised or updated?
• Does it have any broken or missing links? -
Relevancy
• Does it relate to your topic or answer your question?
• Who is the intended audience?
• Is it written at an appropriate level (i.e. not below or above your needs)?
• Have you looked at a variety of sources? -
Authority
• Who is the author/publisher/source/sponsor?
• Are the author’s credentials or organizational affiliations given?
• What are the author’s qualifications to write on the topic? -
Accuracy
• Where does the information come from?
• Is the information supported by evidence (like a bibliography or working links to other websites)?
• Has the author's information been reviewed or refereed (meaning evaluated by others in the same profession)?
• Can you verify any of the information in another source or from personal knowledge?
• Does the language or tone seem unbiased and free of emotion (watch out for emotional writing or opinions not based upon fact)?
• Are there spelling, grammar, or other typographical errors? -
Purpose
• What is the purpose of the information? to inform? to teach? to sell? to entertain? to persuade?
• Do the authors/sponsors make their intentions or purpose clear?
• Is it fact? opinion? propaganda? objective? impartial?
• Are there political, ideological, cultural, religious, institutional, or personal biases? (you want to avoid these sources in scholarly research)?
- Last Updated: Aug 30, 2024 11:30 AM
- URL: https://libguides.gvsu.edu/ECO211