Website Examples for Evaluation

Check for:

            Authority             Objectivity                 Format & Presentation
            Accuracy             Scope & Intent           Currency

Explore the following sites which can be used as examples to illustrate differences using these criteria and differences in content, purpose, and/or level of intended audience.

• Here are two sites with similar addresses, but only the one ending in .gov is the official site of the U.S. Whitehouse:
  • http://www.whitehouse.net
  • http://www.whitehouse.gov

• Sites for debunking urban legends, many of which are helped along by the internet:
  • Urban Legends and Folklore
  • ScamBusters.org: Urban Legends and Hoaxes Resource Center
  • Snopes.com
  • UrbanLegends.com

• The following sites link to numerous sites which have very different political biases and which provide very different viewpoints:
  • California Interest Groups
  • Lobby Group Web Sites
  • National Political Index
  • Political Advocacy Groups: A directory of United States Lobbyists
  • Political Parties
  • Political Resources on the Net
  • Project Vote Smart's Issue Organizations

• This site captured Time Warner's too-early edition of the O.J. Simpson verdict, which illustrates that once up on the Web, it's difficult, if not impossible, to retract completely:
  • GUILTY!

• Critically evaluate your resources
  • "NBC quake miniseries has seismic experts shaking their heads" April 12, 2004.
    In this article, scientists state that a disaster TV miniseries called "10.5" is grossly inaccurate but when asked if scientists were consulted, the executive producer said, "'Not really. We went on the Internet for backup research.'"
  • "Just the Facts, Please: Judges Must Exercise Caution When Relying on Surveys and Polls" January 16, 2004.
    An article, on the Center For Individual Freedom webpage, about a judge who relied on students' falsified survey data to rule on a change of venue for a case.
  • "CNN Airs False Report Claiming Teachers will be Fired" April 6, 2004.

• The following two sites illustrate content differences depending upon the credentials and/or subject expertise of the author:
  • Egypt [http://www.east-buc.k12.ia.us/Ins/02-03/7/8_Egypt.htm]
  • Egypt [https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/eg.html]

• Be aware not only of what information is available, but also of what's not:
  • Making women's issues go away April 28, 2004.
    ". . . the Bush administration has quietly removed 25 reports from its Women's Bureau Web site, deleting or distorting crucial information on issues from pay equity to reproductive healthcare."
  • Bush Administration Removes Health Info from Federal Websites

• These next two sites both contain health information, but the similarities stop there. Evaluate the pages by determining the purpose or intent of the information provided by each of the sites and by the credentials of the author/producer of the material.
  • National Institutes of Health: Health Information
  • Wallach Online

• Two sites containing Holocaust information: one provides links to information and resources from a variety of sources; the other a published journal article, written by an author with academic credentials, although not in a related field but in Electrical and Computer Engineering, who's article is on Holocaust revisionism.
  • Holocaust Encyclopedia
  • "Context and Perspective in the 'Holocaust' Controversy"

• Sites with different points of view on a topic:
  USA PATRIOT Act
  • The USA PATRIOT Act: Preserving Life and Liberty
  • The USA PATRIOT Act Six Months Later
  Global warming
  • CIEL Condemns Bush's Greenhouse Gas Plan
  • Greenhouse Effect
  • Energy Star
  • Atmospheric Modeling
  Overpopulation
  • The Tyranny Of The Environmentalists: Pursuing The Myth Of Over-Population
  • The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement
  • The Overpopulation Myths
  • Factoids & Frequently Asked Questions

• The following pages are a few examples of "bogus" sites:
  • Feline Reactions to Bearded Men
  • The True but Little Known Facts about Women and Aids, with documentation
  • The Dangers of Bread
  • Dihydrogen Monoxide - DHMO Homepage
  • The Lovenstein Institute
    A bogus site specifically created to provide "evidence" around a hoax circulating on email claiming that President Bush has the lowest IQ among all of the presidents from the last 50 years. The email claims were debunked by snopes.com: Presidential IQ
  • GenoChoice "Create Your Own Genetically Healthy Child Online!"
  • Pop! The First Male Pregnancy
  • California's Velcro Crop under Challenge (1993)

Author: Janet Martorana
Revised: August 2008

Direct questions or comments about this page to the author or to webmaster@library.ucsb.edu.

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