Evaluating Internet Sources

Once you have located resources on the Web, you might want to incorporate some of them into your research. However, you have to be careful of what you find.

One of the successes of the Internet is the relative democratization of ideas. Anyone with access to a computer and an internet connection can have a Web page for very little money. Ideas that had formerly been marginalized can now be easily disseminated.

Of course, this is not always a good thing. The mainstream media (newspapers, scholarly journals, etc) have always tried to filter information for the public. As a result, most information consumers are not used to being critical about information sources. The Internet is a mine field of questionable information, but it is helpful if the use of sources can be justified.

When you write a research paper, your print sources must be peer-reviewed. There is less peer-review on the Internet, which makes your job more difficult. Many advisors will still let you use Web sites as long as you can justify their inclusion. Here is a suggested checklist for judging an electronic source of information.

• What is the domain name (e.g. maryvillecollege.edu)? If it is a US government Web site, it should be safe. If it is an educational site, you need to investigate further. Don't be fooled by a name that looks official; anyone can register for a .com, .net or .org domain name.
• Is there any information about the author or the organization? There should always be a clear statement of authorship and responsibility. If the Web page isn't signed, the source is worthless.
• If the web page is signed, take a look at the author's qualifications. Do a Web search on the author's name and see if he or she is representing himself or herself accurately. Also search the literature to see if the author has published in peer-reviewed journals.
• Don't take footnotes at face value. Scholarly appearance doesn't equal true scholarship. If an author makes a wildly controversial statement, check some of the sources. Also look for a rebutting argument elsewhere on the Web and compare the two.
• Finally, if the source still seems shady, leave it alone for academic purposes.

Holocaust Revisionism

An example of Internet controversy is Holocaust revisionism. The most common revisionist argument is that the mass extermination of European Jewry never happened. This sounds absurd, and for years these views were buried in obscure books and magazines. But the Internet has given them a semblance of scholarly respectability, at least to the layperson. If you are not familiar with the details of the Holocaust, the first look at their evidence can be intriguing (Holocaust Revisionism FAQ, Holocaust Revisionists). They present themselves as proper skeptics using historical sources and photographs to support their arguments. A quick look at some rebutting arguments (Holocaust FAQs, Nizkor), however, quickly shows their arguments to be contrived.

This is just an example of the kinds of arguments the Internet attracts. Not all of them are as hollow, and some of them might well be worthwhile. But you have to be careful using them as reliable sources.

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This page created by Christopher Ryland 25 August 2000. Last updated 28 July 2002.