Evaluating+Websites

Website Evaluation is a critical skill needed to determine whether a website is trustworthy or not. To do this, you need to be able to learn what it is trying to do. Is it trying to see you something? Is it trying to sway your opinion? Things of that nature. F irst thing you have to do is determine what type of website it is. Is it... Advocacy, trying to sway your opinion. Commercial, trying to sell you something. Informational, provi ding you with facts. Entertainment, trying to entertain you. Educational, trying to teach you something. News, giving you facts. or Personal, forums that is expressing individual opinions.

Authority
After this, you need to determine who has the authority on the website. Are they qualified for the information, and can they be contacted?

Accuracy
Next you need to figure out how accurate the information is on the website. Is the information cited? What was their research method?

Objectivity
Then find the objectivity of the website. In other words, determine if the website is bias or the information on the website was distorted.

Currency
Now find the currency, as in how recent it is. Is the information up to date? How often is the website updated?

Coverage
Lastly, find the coverage. Evaluate the information on the website, and determine who the info is meant for. Is the website made for a specific group?

**Avoiding Plagiarism**

Now say you found a website with information you wanted to use for a project or a research paper, you can't just copy and paste the information and call it your own. Doing so would be plagiarism. For those who don't know, plagiarism is purposely taking somebody else's information and calling it yours. Now just changing a few words of the information doesn't actually make the information yours. In order to use the information, you need to first paraphrase it, meaning you change most, if not all, the words until only the main idea remains. Then you have to have work cited page where people can see your information. Make sure it doesn't lead to a deleted page. =[|Copyright and Fair-Use]=

Copyright is t he concept of protection for work that is made by an individual, which allows the creator of this creation has the right to choose if it can be: recreated, released, shown, and performed. Only the creator of a work has the right to make or produce a different version of the original piece, such as a book into a movie. Fair-use is the use of a small portion of some copyrighted material for a specific reasons, such as an education use.