A few things about website reliability:
- I remember hearing somewhere that when you put keyword in the search bar, it finds websites that contain those key words. Then, it organizes the websites based on how many links lead to that website. In this way, the websites that are listed first have the most links to them. If this is true (again I’m not sure if it is) then the first several sites that Google spits back may be pretty reliable if other websites deem them reliable enough to link to them.
- about wikipedia…..I think it was on 60 minutes sometime last year…. The producers had professionals read randomly chosen articles from wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica. They found that there was no difference in the quality of the articles. Many teachers have nothing good to day about wikipedia….but it’s free, easily accessible, and apparently very reliable
- to make sure that your data is accurate, compare it with other websites, or even look in an actual concrete object….an encyclopedia. Tatnall has great online resources with UDlib, and I’m sure that you could verify your information that way.
- I haven’t really been taught any method to test for website reliability……except to check information with multiple sources.
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2 comments:
Hey Zach,
I never knew that search engines ordered results in that way. If that is true it is very interesting. I agree with what you said about wikipedia. I have always found most of the information on there to be very reliable. And with any site there is bound to be some information that contradicts other information and as long as you check the information you get from the site I have always found it to be fine. Like you said, the only way I have ever learned to check a web site's information is to check other sites and trust your instincts.
-Jen
That's a really good point about Google, and one which I always forget! However, this feature can be easily manipulated (Wikipedia has a nice article on Google bombing), so I wouldn't use it as more than a preliminary guide. It's still useful, though.
And wow, I thought of that Wikipedia vs. Britannica experiment, too. It's funny how much we hear against Wikipedia when it actually can measure up against the standard!
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