Webpages are good for...
government and official information, reports and statistics
information from educational institutions and not for profit organisations
access to latest news information and current events
Use the CRAAP checklist! Information from the web has to meet a higher standard before you use it in an assignment. Why? It is very easy to put information on the web. Information is not always verified or subject to any kind of peer review process.
This short video looks at evaluating web pages using the CRAAP test.
There are many different types of websites: government, educational, non-profit, commercial, personal. The URL of the website may contain useful clues.
Looking at the domain of the website can give you a good idea of its focus. For example, a commercial website is likely to be focused on selling a product, while a website from an educational institution is likely to be focused on providing information.
Different countries follow different patterns for domain codes. Australia follows the American pattern while New Zealand follows the British pattern. America is the only country without a country domain (although it can and sometimes does use .us).
Common domains | |
.edu / .ac | educational institutions |
.gov / .govt | government departments |
.org | organisations |
.com / .co | commercial body, company, personal websites |
.net | networks, personal websites |
Country domains | |
.au | Australia |
.uk | United Kingdom |
.ca | Canada |
.nz | New Zealand |
What is Wikipedia? A free online encyclopedia containing millions of articles. Anyone can write and edit the articles. As a result you can never be sure that the information is correct, up to date or without bias.
Can I use information from Wikipedia in my assignments?
Many lecturers are opposed to students using Wikipedia and will mark down assignments which cite Wikipedia.
But, Wikipedia can help with your assignment research in different ways:
It can sometimes be confusing to sort out fact from fiction when evaluating news websites. This short video introduces different types of fake news.
To learn more about how to identify fake news have a look at the News makers/news fakers guide.
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