Hi girls!
Well, as far as concearning online sources, I must say that I found a lot of information on the Internet when I was doing my thesis. Furthermore, I had my personal criteria to judge the websites which I wanted to consult. Firstly, I checked the author who wrote the text in the website; secondly, I checked who published the material. That's all.
Without any doubt, what I did in the past wasn't enough to judge online sources... In fact,reading through the web sites we had to consult, I learned new things about evaluating online sources. For example, I noticed that I've never cared about plagiarism before now...I recognized that if I'm writing an official document such as a thesis, I can't do copy and paste on whatever I find on the Internet. So, I decided to summarize what I found in the links Sarah suggested to us, in order to have clearer ideas on what I had learned about evaluating online sources.
The University of Essex focused on the critical use of the Internet; it stressed the use of referencing, the plagiarism and the authorship. I liked most of all what it was written about authorship. Firstly, they gave a definition of this term, saying that authorship refers to the production and ownership of ideas and intellectual material, such as books, articles, images, etc. Secondly, they made some reflections about the concept of authorship. They affirmed that it effects all our acedemic work, not just the way we are expected to apply referencing convention. For example, at University we have the possibility to develop our own ideas and enlarge our knowledge, using established knowledge as a foundation. Furthermore, we will be motivated to "find our voice", which means developing our unique academic writing style.
Then, they focused on how to avoid plagiarism and they uggested to us these three solutions:
- Learning how to note -take effectively.
- Learning how to reference correctly.
- Lerning how to paraphrase correctly: rephrase the idea entirely, trying to capture and mantain its essence and meaning.
The Purdue's Online Writing Lab said that evaluating sources is like a detective work! In this web site they gave us some information on how to do this analysis.
Firstly, there are some questions to ask ourself before starting:
- What kind of information am I looking for?
- Where would be a likely place to look?
Secondly,we evaluate the bibliographic citation:
-Who is the author?
- Credentials: how reputable the author is.
- References: name listed in other sources; find other references to the author.
- Institution: organization, institution or company the author is associated with.
-Timeliness:
- When was the source published?
- Is that date current enough or might there be outdated material?
-Publisher/Producer:
- Who produced or published the material ?
- Might be the material be too scholarly,too specialized or too popular to be useful to me?
Thirdly, we evaluate the content:
- Read the preface.
- Look to the table of contents and index.
- References and citations.
- Audience.
- Determine if the content of the source is fact, opinion, or propaganda.
- Accuracy: how timely the source is.
Finally, evaluating Internet sources we should check:
- Authorship.
- Accuracy of information: is there documentation to indicate the source of the information
- Goals of the site.
- Access:How did I find the site?
In the third website which belongs to San Diego State University, I found useful tools which I can use in evaluating sources of information. These tools are library catalogs, such as the Pac or periodical index databases, which contain brief author, publisher and date of publication information.
Well, I think now I've enlarged my personal criteria of judging online sources.That's all.
See you!!!
3 comments:
Hi Ele!
I found the three websites useful, too. In fact, I think that there aren’t proper information about online sources and how to judge them, and these websites try to make a little clarity. I already used some of the suggestions these websites propose: for example thinking on the author, the kind of websites we’re visiting ( if it’s institutional or not, if it’s a personal page etc.) and the date in which the websites is updated. However, there are things quite new for me: I know that plagiarism exists, but I didn’t care too much about it. Actually, it’s important to keep in mind that it exists and it can be dangerous: one can’t simply copy and paste others’ ideas; moreover, one don’t know if there could be sanctions or not. Even if I prefer using traditional sources like books or newspaper articles, I find using online sources useful. The kind of source I use depends on what I’m searching and what is the aim of my work: I didn’t use online sources for my thesis ( my professor advised me against it, and so I used books as material for my thesis), but if I want to make something more informal I prefer search information on the Internet.
Bye!
Hi Ele!
Like you, I notice that my personal criteria for judging an online source were not complete, at all. I had never put so much attention on plagiarism and authorship; I would often copy some useful ideas from the web but without stating that it was something taken from a web source. As Vale said, I recognize that plagiarism is something important which must be avoided because we should respect the creativity and the rights of an author or of an institution.
Hallo!
You know what!? I think that we all discovered that the criteria we have used to judge the internet sources until now are perfunctory! But finally we have understood this and I think that having the conscience of this fact is a good starting point! From now on I’m sure we’ll pay much more attention while choosing the documents and web sites!
The websites that Sarah suggested us are full of useful tools and tricks to apply when looking for information in the net! And I have to say that you summarized them in a very clear way! Now we have to interiorize this criteria in order to be more effective in our research!
Bye bye
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