Before the advent of the Internet, finding out the day's weather report, looking up bus schedules or shopping for groceries were tasks accomplished in person or over the phone. Today, many everyday tasks are administered online. Likewise, conducting research, an activity once relegated primarily to libraries, is increasingly executed in virtual space. While the Web can offer limitless sources of information and opinions, it does not have the consistent control of an academic database. Discuss the following with your peers in class: What are some of the principles you can use to evaluate the information you find online? Now consider the Yahoo search results page for the words "Richard Estes" from October, 2004 shown in this image. Try entering the same search terms in three different search engines. Compare and contrast the nature and scope of the search results each provides. Follow several of the links and write a paragraph evaluating the validity of the information, based on the principles you have discussed in class.

There are several types of search engines available on the World Wide Web. Google alone has a separate engine for filtering images, news, maps, local sites, and several other forms of online content. For your own research, you might consult scholar.google.com, in addition to the academic databases that are available to subscribers, such as your institution's library. Keep in mind that many of the principles of reliability found in print can be extended to the web. Come up with a list of questions you should ask when analyzing print sources. Reshaping such a list for web sources should be easy: Who is the author? And what makes the author qualified to speak on the subject? If authorial bias is evident, what is the source of it? (For instance, MADD's reporting drinking and driving statistics stems from a different bias than a white supremacist group's reporting racial violence statistics). Write your response.

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Chapter 1. Observing the Ordinary Visual Exercises for Chapter 1 Research Links for Chapter 1

Re:Searching the Web -- Select Another Chapter -- Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7

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