Performing research online is like being a police detective: Your information is only as good as your sources. Some Web sites are legitimate and credible, while others cannot be counted on for reliable information.

Visit our Ten Steps to Better Web research for the best tutorial anywhere on Web research; below is a condensed version of it.

The Right Approach

The first step is to develop the right approach to research:

* Be skeptical. The focus of your search should be finding the best information available, rather than finding the first information that sounds good. Anyone can publish anything on the Web, quickly and cheaply.

* Try to verify information by confirming it with multiple sources. If several reliable Web sites provide the same details, it’s more likely that the information is accurate.

* No single characteristic will tell you if a Web site is reliable. Every aspect of a Web site must be fully examined to ensure that the available information is accurate, up to date, objective and authoritative.

About Us

Your first stop when visiting a Web site should be the “About Us” section. If there is no “About Us,” or little information in it, then you can’t trust the Web site any more than you can trust a book that doesn’t identify the author.

Find answers to these questions:

Who is the publisher of the Web site? Who funded it? Might they have any motives other than sharing accurate information? Look elsewhere on the Web for other opinions about the publisher, as well as the authors of articles on the site.

Does the site appear to have any social or political biases?

Does the site have advertisements? Are they clearly labeled, or do they blend with the general information? Could the advertisers influence the information on the site?

Reviewing Individual Articles

Who is the author, or authors, of the article you are reviewing? What are the author’s credentials? Does the author back up their statements with verifiable facts, or is the article merely unsupported opinion? Does the author link to credible third-party resources so you can verify the information elsewhere?

Is the article not meant to be taken seriously? Is it a satire or a parody?

Is this the original source of the article, or was the article taken from another site?  Many Web sites steal content from other Web sites, and don’t bother to keep it up to date. Cut and paste a sentence into a search engine to see if it appears anywhere else on the Web. If you find that the article appears on multiple web sites, try to figure out which site was the original publisher of the content and evaluate the credibility of that site.

What is the site’s editorial policy? Do editors or experts review the information? Is the information thorough and complete?

Many Web pages indicate when they were created and last revised. Check the bottom of the page for a copyright date or look for a date near the byline of an article. Without a date, the validity of the information is difficult to evaluate. If you can’t find a date, you cannot assume the information is current and up to date; look elsewhere for similar information with a date on it.