Prince George's Community College

301 Largo Road
Largo, Maryland 20774

Internet users frequently rely on the World Wide Web for doing research because it contains large amounts of quality resources. Misinformation on the Web is a problem because anyone can publish on it. Since the lack of quality control exists, it requires Internet users to filter information for quality Web sites. For example, books, journals, magazines, and newspapers, editors are used to edit and screen information before it is published.

While librarians can help users to filter misinformation, it is important for users to be able to discern when information is factual rather than opinion and other gray areas of information. Identifying the types of Web site categories can help in selecting the appropriate kind of sources and give credibility to a paper. Knowing how to identify a few categories will be invaluable for your research.

Informational sites provide factual information such as reference sources, libraries, statistics, and events. These sites are frequently published by educational institutions or governmental bodies. These sites usually have edu or gov as their domains such as the sites: http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/terrorism/terrorism2.htm, Counterterrorism Policy, or http://www.cia.gov/terrorism/index.html, Central Intelligence Agency - The War on .

News sites primarily provide current information. Using news sources is a way of keeping abreast of some ongoing events hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly. Most of these sites have a com domain but can also have an org domain.

The news site, CNN Report: FBI, CIA Need Overall, http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/07/17/attacks.intelligence/index.html is an example of a com news site. An example of an org domain news site is AJR (America Journalism Review) NewsLinks, http://newslink.org.

Advocacy sites are published by organizations to influence public opinion. Most of the organizations that publish these sites are non-profit. These types of sites usually have an org domain. An example of this type of Web site is Center for Defense Information: Terrorism http://www.cdi.org/program/index.cfm?programid=39.

Business/Marketing sites are published by a commercial company primarily to market and sell products such as CT Studies.com site, Centre for Counterterrorism Studies, http://ctstudies.com/. This type of site has a com domain.

Personal sites are published by individuals who may be or may not be affiliated with a larger body. These sites frequently have a com or edu domain with a tilde (~), but can have another type of domain. An example of a personal site with an edu domain is from a university for a government class, http://it.stlawu.edu/~govt/361F02Deutch.html.

Counterfeit sites try to disguise themselves as the authentic site.The purpose is to disseminate wrong information in many instances. Some can be developed for humor and others for bias. These sites will have any domain. An example of a counterfeit site is, The White House - Office of Homeland Security, http://www.whitehouse.org/homeland/index.asp.

Sources:

Alexander, J. E., & Tate, M. E. (1999). Web wisdom: How to
evaluate and create information quality on the web. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Piper, P. S. (2000). Better read that again: Web hoaxes and misinformation. Searcher, 9(8). Retrieved July 29, 2002.

How to Recognize a Business/Marketing Web Page
How to Recognize a News Web Page

How to Recognize a Personal Web Page
How to Recognize an Advocacy Web Page
How to Recognize an Informational Web Page