Credible websites can be excellent sources of information for your research paper, provided that your assignment allows you to use websites.
Evaluating websites can be tricky. One technique you can use is lateral reading. When you find a webpage you want to use take the following steps to evaluate it for credibility.
Find out what other sources are saying about the author or organization. Wikipedia can be a good place to start. Check and see if there seems to be controversy around the author or organization. Be sure to look at the history of the Wikipedia article to see if there are a lot of corrections back and forth, which may indicate that there is an active attempt to present the author or organization in a specific biased way.
Pay attention to any news articles from reputable sources that talk about the author or organization.
If the website is by an organization, identify who the person or people are behind the organization. Do they have specific goals or agendas they are trying to achieve with the information?
Once you have three to 5 sources of outside information about the creator, decide if they are credible or not. If you can't find any additional information about the creator, or you aren't confident that they are a credible, unbiased source of information, move on to another page.
To see lateral reading in action check out the video below:
Find additional information with our guide on identifying scholarly information, whether it is in print or electronic format. Ask your professor or a librarian if you're unsure about a website's credibility.
