At last...it's getting cold!
I love winter, that's my favourite season!
The topic we're about to discuss this week is very interesting and useful for those who often have to search for materials (especially online materials) as we actually are. I've read a lot about this topic because I was pretty ignorant about it, and I found very useful tips to use for my online investigations.
Firstly I'd like to quote a couple of sentences taken from an article by Tina Kelley and published by The New York Times which is called "Whales in the Minnesota River?" :
"If you wanted to publish a book that says 2 plus 2 equals 5, you had to go through a lot of effort and spend a great deal of money, but the cost of putting up a Web page saying 2 plus 2 equals 5 is virtually nothing".
"We've inherited this notion that if it pops up on a screen and looks good, we tend to think of it as fairly credible".
I definitely agree with these two statements, and I think that they show two of the most relevant problems within the issue of trustworthiness of webpages. In fact, considering the great amount of information one can get access to in the World Wide Web, the problem of determining whether a webpage is trustworthy or not becomes central in our search for documents. Unfortunately, most of the times we're not able to judge properly, and we get wrong by considering just the layout of the webpage and not judging using the right criteria. According to the great majority of the websites I've visited to get information about this topic, the main criteria to judge the reliability of a web document should be:
- Authorship (Who is responsible for publishing the information provided by the source)
- Publishing body (Where we are in the geography of cyberspace, looking at the web page you are trying to evaluate and focusing on the URL)
- Currency of the document (Considering the age and updatedness of your page)
However, we should always keep in mind that "evaluating information usually consists of weighing a number of criteria together" (Practical Steps in Evaluating Internet Resources) and that "there's not only a huge quantity out there but a very uneven level of quality" (Evaluating Sources of Information).
In fact, it is undeniably true that the problem of coming across untrue and rough information is extremely high in the Web. While surfing the Net I've read quite a lot of articles demonstrating how easy it is to publish any kind of bogus information or how frequently websites publish just what they're paid for (e.g. it is frequent habit for Amazon.com). Paradoxical though it may seem, everyone has the chance of publishing essays demonstrating not only that 2 plus 2 equals 5 (which would be of no danger at all), but also political, medical and scientific fakes which could eventually be dangerous for the readers evaluating them as trustworthy.
It is often the case that we tend to be not so critical as we should, so that we do not have to make the mistake of evaluating a webpage only when there are "grammatical errors, sloppy spelling or a goofy design, that makes us distrust the content" (Tina Kelley). Evaluating sources is a skill we need all the time, even when we feel overwhelmed with the endless amount of information available, and "The temptation would be to accept whatever you find. But don't be tempted" (Evaluating Sources of Information)!
As far as I'm concerned, I do agree with the statement Tina Kelley quotes in her article: "People have to be their own editors" within the information they come across in the World Wide Web! That is absolutely true, and is actually the basic issue at stake here. And finally, we should always remember that "there are other, nonelectronic, methods of getting much of the information" and that "it may be the Internet is the best resource, or maybe a book, or maybe a person will be the best resource"!
Camilla
6 commenti:
Hi Camilla,
I’d like to comment on the quotation you put at the end of your post. “It may be the Internet is the best resource, or maybe a book, or maybe a person will be the best resource". It’s so true! Last week I was reading an article in Spanish and I fond out this sentence: «Más vale una conversación con un experto en la materia que una enciclopedia entera sobre esa materia»( Xosé Castro Roig, La curiosidad como aprendizaje). I loved it and I immediately wrote it down! Actually, I do think that people are the best source for information! You’ll remember what they say whereas you will easily forget something you read. Experience is the best knowledge. However it’s very difficult to find an expert in any occasion!
I appreciated the fact that you pointed out the weak point of the web. As I wrote on my post, anyone can put whatever they want on the Net and publish it in an apparently reliable way. You run the risk of finding hoaxes, incorrect information and plagiarisms. Last year I helped my brother to find some reliable information about drugs. He had to make a power point presentation. Well, we found out very weird websites. For example there was an article which assumed that drugs (I think the author was speaking about cocaine) could strengthen your hair.That’s incredible! Basically that’s the reason why I agree with you when you say : “everyone has the chance of publishing essays demonstrating not only that 2 plus 2 equals 5 (which would be of no dangerous at all), but also political, medical and scientific fakes which could eventually be dangerous for the readers evaluating them as trustworthy”. Many people who surf on the Web blindly accept the information they come across. It’s very risky especially if they’re searching for information about serious matters such as illnesses... Therefore, it’s better to analyze carefully our source be it online or not!
Thanks for your useful tips and your interesting post! You did a very good job!
Hi Camilla,
I really liked your post, especially the original and non-conformist way you approached the issue.
You looked for the most relevant and accessible pages about criteria on how to evaluate websites and you found also an interesting article.
I appreciated the fact that you read through the article "Whales in the Minnesota River?” by Tina Kelley and you clearly and briefly described it to us. Your quotations were really effective and they helped you to prove and support your opinions.
Thus, the post was very easy to read! You used effective expressions and organized your ideas in a clear way. Above all, I appreciated the fact that you clearly pointed out your opinions and you supported them with examples.
In the end, I want to say you that your conclusion is really effective and, as Silvia already said, it’s a good starting point for further analysis.
Very good job, Camilla!!!
Cheers
Hi Camilla!
I really liked your post since you effectively managed to point out your opinions! I agree with Martina when she wrote that you approached the issue in an original and non-conformist way. Good job!
I particularly appreciated that you supported your thoughts by quoting some sentences from an article by Tina Kelley. Before reading your post, I didn’t know her! Like Silvia and Martina, I loved the quotation you put in the conclusion. You’re absolutely right when you say that people could be the best resource!
As far as peer reviewing is concerned, I would like to suggest you to put a comma after the adverb ‘firstly’. Moreover, I think that you should use the preposition ‘on’, instead of ‘in’ in the following sentence: “It is undeniably true that the problem of coming across untrue and rough information is extremely high IN the Web”.
That’s all for now!
See you soon
Veronica
Hi Camilla!
How are you? :-)
First of all, I really like the title of your post. It is full of meanings and perfectly summarizes the work you have to do to establish if a source is reliable or not.
I agree with Silvia when she says that she likes the quotation you put in the end. Like Martina wrote, it is really effective! I think it's also a contemporary question, because more and more we search for information on the web and sometimes we do not remember that there are also people that can help us!
I like the fact that you use useful examples to strengthen your opinions, although I have some difficulties in reading the red words! :-)
I read your comment to my post and I saw you don't agree with me when I wrote about bloglines. Ehm...I wrote the wrong word...I wanted to write del.icio.us. SORRY! Anyway, you are right in saying that we can use also Google and other search engines for our researches.
As for Wikipedia, maybe we have different experiences. As I wrote in my post, it helped me a lot for English literature, and I was sure about the information I found also because our professor suggested us to use it (if you need some info about Achebe, it is really useful!). I didn't know that we could not use Wikipedia for our Thesis.
C U on Wednesday!
Mary
Dear Camilla,
Your post is definitely the most original I read! In my opinion, it is very positive and democratic that anyone can write anything on the Web, but this is true only to the extend that you write things to spread objective and well-founded information. The problem is that too many people or organizations use the Web to persuade people to do something (to join a group, association, party,…) or, even worse, to have an income (e.g. by selling handbooks, miraculous medicines or cosmetic products)! As Silvia and you rightly pointed out, this is particularly risky when these sources are “political, medical and scientific fakes”.
The less you know the dangers of taking for granted information from the Internet and the criteria you should consider when judging it, the more you can be influenced by ‘trash sources’. That’s why I do agree too with the statement Tina Kelley quotes in her article: "People have to be their own editors"; the Web CAN be a rich source of information only if you have a critical approach to it and, to be critical, you MUST know according to what criteria you have to evaluate any information you find on it. Do you agree?
Anyway, as the other girls said, you put a very effective statement at the end of your post. Between stacks of books in libraries and a good deal of Internet links, what is the role played by people as sources of information? Are sources of information only those that someone has fixed somewhere, either on paper or online? We should start reconsidering the richness of having verbal and interpersonal debates with experts because, as Silvia wrote, «Más vale una conversación con un experto en la materia que una enciclopedia entera sobre esa materia». I liked this quote very much!
See you Camilla!
Elena
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