Citation
In order to check sources of information and review the material you find on the web it is necessary to be able to find those sites and to identify them properly. Use the forms provided below to cite the documents you find on the web. You will be using this as the title for the Web site annotated bibliography you will be doing for this course as well as using web sites as resources in papers that you write for other courses.
When citing a web page, the author of the document should
be given, and the title of the page should be easily identified. The URL
(Uniform Resource Locator) address tells us where to find this document
on the Web. It is provided in place of the information on the publisher.
The date the article was created should also be provided and the
date you visited the cite. If that is not given then the date that you
accessed the document should be provided. If information is absent you
should indicate that. Here are some examples:
Example #1
| author | date created | title |
| Mori, Barbara | 1997 | Sociology 316 syllabus |
| URL | date visited |
| http://www.fmdc.calpoly.edu/libarts/bmori/syll/316syll/316syll.html | (Oct. 26, 1997) |
Example #2
| author | date created | title of work | title of Web page |
| Burka, Lauren P | 1993 | "A Hypertext History of Multi-User Dimensions." | MUD History. |
| URL | date visited |
| http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/lpb/mud-history.html | (5 Dec.1994). |
The examples above are in boxes to indicate where the information should go an actual citation looks like a book citation. Your citations should look like this:
EVALUATION
As not all information on the Web is equally valuable and reliable, it is important to have a set of criteria by which you can assess each Web site you find. Below is a series of questions that you will answer for each Web site you include in your paper.
Citation
A. Description
1. Search Engine eg:
Inforseek, Alta Vista
2. Website
Description . Describe the website. What does it contain? charts?
graphs? text? citations? links? content? You
should be able to identify the web page from your description.
B. Evaluation Answer the questions below:
1. Source and authority
Who wrote, created and/or published the information? What are their credentials? Is contact information provided? Are they affiliated with an established institution? Can information be verified through bibliographies or footnotes? Are sources acknowledged?
2. Scope and Content
What is the scope or content? What are the topics covered by this web page? How well does it cover the topic. Is this resource comprehensive, brief or unique? Is it original material or a secondary resource? Is the level elementary or advance? Is the form of presentation supportive or distracting?
3. Purpose and Relevance
Is the information intended to inform (include topic), explain or persuade? What is the author's or producers point of view or perspective? What is the degree of subjectivity or bias? What audience is being targeted, general, specialized or partisan? Did you find the material useful in understanding the topic you were researching?
4. Timeliness or Currency
When was the web page created? How current or up-to-date is the information? Is the site regularly revised? Is the information provided on your topic timely and valid?
C. Comments: Your assessment of the value of the web site as a source of information about the topic you have chosen.
This is to serve as a future resource. Answer the questions with specific information about the website. Do not use evaluative words like: "good site," "great graphics," "well-written". These are vague and depend on knowing the writer's unstated criteria. Instead provide exact information about the site. If there is nothing on that issue say that.
The purpose of this assignment is to help you develop a method for taking notes of websites that provides information about the site not just the contents. In evaluating the validity and usefulness of a site, certain kinds of information are necessary. You have learned how to do this for books and also journal articles. Now you will learn how to do it for websites. This information is important in helping you decide which websites provide valuable information on topics you have chosen. So this is meant to be in an outline form so you can easily find the information relevant to each area. Don't write paragraphs. Then you will have a record of the sites you have visited and won't have to look them up each time to find out if they are useful sites or not. This is for yourself in the future not for me.
Provide information that will enable you or anyone else to evaluate the site: for example: A. "Contains 15 links to other sites on the same topic" is more useful than "has links". B 3 "The information is to inform" is a meaningless sentence. "The information presented is to inform readers about the importance of ___ in understanding the topic." is useful. B4 "The information is valid." gives no indication of why you think so and little information about the currency of the website or what information it contains.
This guide is adapted from the Evaluating and Citing World Wide Web Resources information put out by the Robert E. Kennedy Library at Cal Poly.