Internet: Fact or Fiction?
Web sites to Explore
I. Site for Discussion:
A. Dihydrogen Monoxide Research Division (DMRD): http://www.dhmo.org/
II. Sites to Explore
A. Congress
1. THOMAS - http://thomas.loc.gov/ or http://www.congress.gov/
2. The Congressional Network - www.congress.net
3. GOV. - www.congress.com
4. Congress.org by Capitol Advantage - www.congress.org
5. The Center on Congress at Indiana University - http://www.centeroncongress.org/
B. Civil War
1. Shotgun’s Home of the American Civil War - http://www.civilwarhome.com/
2. American Civil War - http://americancivilwar.com/
3. United States Civil War - http://www.us-civilwar.com/
4. The Civil War Home Page - http://www.civil-war.net/
5. The Civil War Preservation Trust - http://www.civilwar.org/
6. American Civil War from Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War
7. Selected Civil War Photographs, American Memory - http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cwphtml/cwphome.html
8. The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War - http://valley.vcdh.virginia.edu/
9. Crisis at Fort Sumter - http://www.tulane.edu/~sumter/
C. Native Americans
1. Native Americans – Internet Resources: http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/native.htm
2. Learn About Native Americans: http://www.ahsd25.k12.il.us/curriculum/nativeamericans/index.html
3. Native Americans.com: http://www.nativeamericans.com/
4. Native American Sites: http://www.nativeculturelinks.com/indians.html
5. Native American Facts for Kids: http://www.native-languages.org/kids.htm
6. Native Americans in the United States: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Americans_in_the_United_States
7. Edward S. Curtis’s “The North American Indian: Photographic Images:” http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award98/ienhtml/curthome.html
D. Science
1. The ecoEnquirer - http://www.ecoenquirer.com
2. GlobalWarming.org - http://www.globalwarming.org/
3. Global Warming from Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming
4. Global Warming: Early Warning Signs - http://www.climatehotmap.org/
5. World View of Global Warming: The Photographic Documentation of Climate Change - http://www.worldviewofglobalwarming.org/
6. Environmental Protection Agency: Climate Change - http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/
III. Checking the source:
A. Urban Legend Reference Pages - http://www.snopes.com/
B. Whois sites
1. Easy Whois - http://www.easywhois.com/ or http://www.easy-whois.com/
2. Internic - http://www.internic.net/whois.html
3. Network Solutions - http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/index.jsp
IV. Taking a Second Look
1. The Flat Earth Society - http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djublonskopf/FlatHome.htm
2. History of the Fisher-Price Airplane - http://www.weathergraphics.com/tim/fisher/
3. The British Stick Insect Foundation - http://www.brookview.karoo.net/Stick_Insects/index.html
4. Buy Dehydrated Water - http://www.buydehydratedwater.com/
5. The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus - http://www.zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/
6. Martin Luther King, Jr.: A True Historical Examination - http://www.martinlutherking.org
1/12/2009
LOC = Web Site Evaluation Form
Web Site Evaluation for Research
Title of Web Site ________
URL ________
Date visited__
Search tool used to find site_________
I. First Impressions
q Page loading (quick?)
q Advertisements (not distracting?)
q Author &/or Organization (labeled?)
q Images & captions (useful?)
q Grammar & spelling (correct?)
q Links (working?)
q Navigation (easy?)
q Date of last page update (recent?)
II. Looking Deeper
Content
q Information quality (current? accurate? complete?)
q Vocabulary (appropriate for audience?)
q Images (unedited?)
q Sound recordings, movies (complete?)
q Bibliography & webliography authoritative?)
q Help (FAQ, help pages?)
q Links from other pages (plentiful, reliable?)
q Cost (free?)
q Authorship
q Author/ organization (authority on topic?)
q Sponsor’s domain (well-known, reputable?)..
Bias
q Tone of site (objective?)
q Point-of-view (objective?)
Conclusions
1. Who is the audience for site (children, adults, students, consumers, etc.___
2. What is the purpose of site (inform, persuade, advertise, satirize, spoof, misinform, etc.?)__ _______ _______
3. Would you recommend this site to others?__
4. Why or why not?____
5. Would you use this site for your projects?
6. Why or why not?____
Web Site Verification Tools:
To check the number of pages that link to the selected site:
Go to a search engine such as Google, Yahoo, or Altavista.
In the search box, type link:http://webpageURL. The search results page will display pages that link to the selected site. Ex. link:http://www.loc.gov. In AltaVista (www.altavista.com), a link search on http://www.loc.gov/ yields 610,000 pages that link to www.loc.gov, the Library of Congress home page.
NOTE – Search engines respond differently to this exercise. Try several search engines with the same URL to observe this at work. Different results will also occur if the “http://” is deleted, links are written but not linked, or if the site is linked by its ‘alias’ URL.
To learn the sponsor of the domain name of the selected site:
Go to http://www.internic.net/whois.html or http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/index.jsp
Enter the domain name and extension. [Find the domain name by looking at the first part of the web address. Omit the “www” if present. The domain name will be the remaining portion of the first part of the web address. Ex. For http://www.loc.gov/ or a longer URL, http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/, the domain name is loc.gov.]
Web Site Evaluation Resources
Evaluating Information Found on the Internet, The Sheridan Libraries, Johns Hopkins University - http://www.library.jhu.edu/researchhelp/general/evaluating/index.html
Hoax? Scholarly Research? Personal Opinion? You Decide!, UCLA College Library - http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/college/help/hoax/index.htm
Piper, Paul S. “Better Read That Again: Web Hoaxes and Misinformation”,. Searcher. Vol. 8, No. 8, Sept. 2000 - http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/sep00/piper.htm
Schrock, Kathy. “The ABCs of Web Site Evaluation”. Classroom Connect, Dec. 1998/ Jan. 1999. - http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/pdf/weval.pdf
Thinking Critically About World Wide Web Resources, UCLA College Library - http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/college/help/critical/index.htm
Using the Internet, Getting Started, The Learning Page, Library of Congress - http://memory.loc.gov/learn/start/inres/gen/using.html
(All sites accessed 3/2008.)
Portal Sites for Research
Virtual Reference Shelf, Library of Congress - http://www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/virtualref.html
Librarians’ Internet Index: Websites You Can Trust - http://lii.org/
WWW Virtual Library - http://vlib.org/
Title of Web Site ________
URL ________
Date visited__
Search tool used to find site_________
I. First Impressions
q Page loading (quick?)
q Advertisements (not distracting?)
q Author &/or Organization (labeled?)
q Images & captions (useful?)
q Grammar & spelling (correct?)
q Links (working?)
q Navigation (easy?)
q Date of last page update (recent?)
II. Looking Deeper
Content
q Information quality (current? accurate? complete?)
q Vocabulary (appropriate for audience?)
q Images (unedited?)
q Sound recordings, movies (complete?)
q Bibliography & webliography authoritative?)
q Help (FAQ, help pages?)
q Links from other pages (plentiful, reliable?)
q Cost (free?)
q Authorship
q Author/ organization (authority on topic?)
q Sponsor’s domain (well-known, reputable?)..
Bias
q Tone of site (objective?)
q Point-of-view (objective?)
Conclusions
1. Who is the audience for site (children, adults, students, consumers, etc.___
2. What is the purpose of site (inform, persuade, advertise, satirize, spoof, misinform, etc.?)__ _______ _______
3. Would you recommend this site to others?__
4. Why or why not?____
5. Would you use this site for your projects?
6. Why or why not?____
Web Site Verification Tools:
To check the number of pages that link to the selected site:
Go to a search engine such as Google, Yahoo, or Altavista.
In the search box, type link:http://webpageURL. The search results page will display pages that link to the selected site. Ex. link:http://www.loc.gov. In AltaVista (www.altavista.com), a link search on http://www.loc.gov/ yields 610,000 pages that link to www.loc.gov, the Library of Congress home page.
NOTE – Search engines respond differently to this exercise. Try several search engines with the same URL to observe this at work. Different results will also occur if the “http://” is deleted, links are written but not linked, or if the site is linked by its ‘alias’ URL.
To learn the sponsor of the domain name of the selected site:
Go to http://www.internic.net/whois.html or http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/index.jsp
Enter the domain name and extension. [Find the domain name by looking at the first part of the web address. Omit the “www” if present. The domain name will be the remaining portion of the first part of the web address. Ex. For http://www.loc.gov/ or a longer URL, http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/, the domain name is loc.gov.]
Web Site Evaluation Resources
Evaluating Information Found on the Internet, The Sheridan Libraries, Johns Hopkins University - http://www.library.jhu.edu/researchhelp/general/evaluating/index.html
Hoax? Scholarly Research? Personal Opinion? You Decide!, UCLA College Library - http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/college/help/hoax/index.htm
Piper, Paul S. “Better Read That Again: Web Hoaxes and Misinformation”,. Searcher. Vol. 8, No. 8, Sept. 2000 - http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/sep00/piper.htm
Schrock, Kathy. “The ABCs of Web Site Evaluation”. Classroom Connect, Dec. 1998/ Jan. 1999. - http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/pdf/weval.pdf
Thinking Critically About World Wide Web Resources, UCLA College Library - http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/college/help/critical/index.htm
Using the Internet, Getting Started, The Learning Page, Library of Congress - http://memory.loc.gov/learn/start/inres/gen/using.html
(All sites accessed 3/2008.)
Portal Sites for Research
Virtual Reference Shelf, Library of Congress - http://www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/virtualref.html
Librarians’ Internet Index: Websites You Can Trust - http://lii.org/
WWW Virtual Library - http://vlib.org/