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When you’re doing research for one of your classes, it’s important that you have the most reliable information possible. The internet is a great place to start because there’s so much information available. However, it’s important to remember that ANYONE can post online, which means that some of the information you find on the internet is not going to be trustworthy. Today we’re going to talk about the criteria you should use to make sure that you only use sources you can trust. If you’d like to follow along, you can find the link to this presentation below the video. There are six basic criteria for evaluating websites: Purpose and audience, authority and credibility, accuracy and reliability, currency and timeliness, objectivity or bias, and structure and navigation. To explore these criteria, we’re going to use three practice websites. These websites are linked at the bottom of each slide, but you can also find the links below this video. Let’s imagine that you’re doing a research paper about school uniforms. You want to know if uniforms help students do better in school, and you’ve found these three potential sources. How can we decide if we can trust this information? First, we must look at the purpose and audience. To do this, ask yourself the following questions: Who is the intended audience of the site? Is the site scholarly or popular? Is the site trying to sell something? To entertain? To persuade? And what is the overall purpose of the site? Answering these questions can help you decide if you can trust this information. Right now, pause the video and visit the three practice sites. As you explore them, try to answer these four questions. The first website is Bargain Babe’s blog post, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Who is the target audience? Looking at the writer’s words, she seems to be addressing parents, especially moms. While parents might know a lot about school uniforms, their information is probably based on personal experience, and not verifiable facts. But there are other problems with this website’s purpose. Did you notice the links to online stores, such as Gap and Polo? What about the notice that the post contains affiliate links? An affiliate link is when a business pays a website to send them internet traffic. So one of the purposes of this website is to generate revenue for the blogger. This means that she’s more likely to tell you information that will send you to these websites, and she might leave out information that doesn’t help her make money. Now let’s look at the next website and try to answer the same questions. On the surface, it might seem like this website is giving you good information about the advantages of school uniforms, but before you use it for your research, you should ask: What is the purpose of this site, who is the audience, and what clues do we have to figure this out? First, this website is definitely trying...