Identifying High-Quality Sites

MARTA EVRY @VENICE4CHANGE 29 OCT 2012
AMAZING PHOTO: EVEN A HURRICANE WON'T KEEP THE HONOR GUARD
FROM THE TOMB OF THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER THIS MORNING. #SANDY

KEY TERMS

• Publish – to present a finished piece of work to the public

• Trustworthy – accurate and dependable

• Evaluate – to carefully examine something to figure out its value

• Criteria – standards on which you base your judgement

HOW IS THE PROCESS OF PUBLISHING PRINTED MATERIAL
(NEWSPAPERS, MAGAZINES, BOOKS) DIFFERENT FROM
PUBLISHING ON THE INTERNET?

• Many website are written by people with expertise on a particular topic but isn’t

always the case throughout the Internet.

• Sometimes people who create a post on blogs do not have a background in the

subject matter, and there is not editor to hold them to a high standard

• By contrast, most respected book publishers and newspaper editors look for authors

who know a lot about their subjects.

• They also have skilled editors and fact checkers who review the information in these

publications for mistakes.

YEAR ROUND SCHOOLING

• In most schools in the USA, students go to school for 10 months in a row, then

have 2 months off. But some schools now operate on a different schedule:
Students attend school for 2-3 months, and then have a shorter break.

• People have different opinions about year-round schooling. Kids don’t have

summers off. Some people think this is a great idea and has a lot of
advantages; some think it’s terrible idea, with many more disadvantages.

YOUR TASK

• Research the issue
• You will NOT be writing a paper about year-round schooling
• The purpose is to figure out whether the website you are viewing is a reliable and useful source of information on this subject.

• To do this you will be giving the website a “test"

TEST BEFORE YOU TRUST

• How can a site be tested?

• What is important to notice when considering the quality of a site?

• Test Before You Trust – Evaluation Form

DON’T FALL INTO THE TRAP!

T

Time

•When was the website created?

•Was it updated?

R

Relevance

•How is this website related to my topic?

•Is there enough info to be useful?

•Is it too easy or too hard?

A

Author

•Who made this website? If you can’t find the name of a person, give the name of the
organization, website, or publisher.

P

Purpose

•Why was this website created?

•To inform? Entertain? Persuade? Sell?