There is no substitute for published, peer-reviewed, scholarly research material, but some times that may not be what you need for courses like Fundamentals of Writing, Speech and English I. When the instructor allows Internet sources to be used, it is time to look beyond our databases to see what is online. The problem is, the Internet is full of unreliable material, and telling the difference is tricky and labor intensive.
Here are some categories of unreliable material to look out for:
- They are trying to sell you something
- They have an ideological agenda (political, religious, racial, etc.)
- They lack expertise (personal Wwbsites, Wikipedia, discussion forums, and many blogs)
In many cases the unreliable material looks pretty reputable. Sites with the .edu as the domain can usually be counted on to be reliable, but student websites also have .edu in the URLs. If you ever attended our library instruction classes, the librarians will tell you that .edu websites are a good choice, as long as you confirm that what you are looking at is by a faculty, experienced grad, or researcher.
The .org websites are often your next choice but they are also of mixed reliability. Organizations can be as biased and ignorant as individuals. On the other hand, many of them are havens of expertise and contribute to the public good. These have great information in their reports and articles. Go to the site's About section and learn about the organization's agenda, and the credentials of the people who are on the site. Look them up in Google and see if you can detect any ties that seem suspicious, or if they look clean.
Next, in any site you choose, look for signs of an agenda, bias, poor research methods, and noticeable errors.
Finally, if you want to find some good websites on your subject in a hurry, go to the Research Guides on the Seminole State site developed by our librarians.
