NOTE: Some of these resources are for "teachers" as well as for students. Why include them in a site designed for students? Answer - It is important for students to know & appreciate why teachers think it is important for students to develop critical reading, study, thinking, reasoning, writing, & research skills.
If you are having problems getting your students to view the whole plethora of information options instead of just the "information highway," then it is time to review critical thinking skills with them.
Although it is easier to put limits on the amount of online materials that can be used in bibliographies, many students need to be taught that the same critical evaluation skills that work with print resources should be applied to online resources. Here are a few of the questions you need to get students to ask themselves before they start to cite web sources in their bibliographies:
What is the site's purpose? Does it have any biases?
Students should be made aware that there are different types of web sites and that all web sites are not created equal. They should know that many of the personal web sites come with an educational (.edu) or network (.net) designation at the end of the main address, often with a ~ (tilde) appearing within the address. For example, . . . http://www.college.edu/students/~jsmith/funstuff.html is a fictitious address for a document on a college student's web page. Students need to learn to handle personal web pages with extreme caution.
Is the information well documented? Does it tell you the source of the information that it uses? Does it agree with other published sources?
If there are no citations or notes that show the source of the information, students need to be reminded to do further research, especially if any information seems illogical or possibly fallacious. Doing the kind of research necessary to determine the reliability of a source is extremely important in developing strong critical research skills.
Are the individual articles signed and dated? What are the author's credentials? Is the author cited frequently in other sources?
Although on many sites the author's name may not be listed, you need to stress that authors on the web may be checked in standardized print biographies or bibliographies, or may have individual, biographical web pages that can help determine who they are and what their credentials or personal beliefs may be. Although some web publishers date or copyright each individual web page, many sites only date the copyright of the "home" or main page at that site. This may or may not be helpful enough to determine if the information presented has current value.
Many students may miss the best information retrieved in their search by concentrating on the first things that they find, rather than the best. Therefore, we recommend that students start with a search directory, such as Yahoo because items have been screened for inclusion in the directory and they are listed under broad categories to search.
If the student needs more information, we recommend using a search engine, such as AltaVista or HotBot to find more specific documents, even though there is no screening for quality control as in Yahoo.
Note: The "search directory" feature, recommended above, is also available @
Google [J. Matas].