The process of evaluating web sites is more than just looking the page over and deciding that it ‘looks’ legitimate. According to GCU Library, the process of evaluating a web site involves checking five categories: authority, accuracy, objectivity, currency, and coverage (LIBRARY). Each category requires you to look deeper than just the front page of a web site. I have evaluated two web sites, Womenshealth.com and Childtrends.org. I believe that both of these sites are excellent sources of information because they demonstrate authority, accuracy, objectivity, currency and coverage.
According to GCU Library Tutorial (n.d.), each category that is evaluated when checking web sites has distinct characteristic that are designed to help a person decide if the web site will be useful in the research process. The first point to check is authority which mainly looks at the author of the page. When evaluating authority, you must be able to verify the author’s credential as well as veryify if the page has copyright credit (LIBRARY). Authority also consists of being able to contact either the author or editor by email, phone or main (LIBRARY). Next, the website’s facts need to be verifiable which is accuracy (LIBRAY). This process is looking to see if there is an editor of the site who verifies the information to ensure that it is accurate (LIBRAY). According to GCU Library Tutorial (n.d.), researchers should also pay attention to the domain of the website to see if they are an organization, commercial or educational site. The next step is to see if the site has objectivity by trying to define what are the goals of the site (LIBRARY). The Tutorial (n.d.) suggests that the researcher makes observations in regards to the whether o...
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...terial is in-depth because it covers all different aspects of teenage preganancy from the risks to how to not become a statistic (Women’s Health Channel, n.d.).
Works Cited
Healthcommunities (n.d.). Healthcommunities. Retreived from http://www.healthcommunities.com/.
Healthcommunities (n.d.). Stanley J. Swierzewski, III, M.D. Retreived from http://www.healthcommunities.com/common/advisors/sswierzewski-md.shtml.
Remedy Health Media (n.d.). Management Team. Retrieved from http://www.remedyhealthmedia.com/management-team.shtml.
Health on the Net Foundation (n.d.). The HON Code of Conduct for medical and health Web sites (HONcode). Retreived from http://www.healthonnet.org/HONcode/Conduct.html.
Women’s Health Channel (n.d.). Teen Pregnancy & Health Risks to the Baby. Retreived from http://www.womenshealthchannel.com/teen-pregnancy/baby-risks.shtml.
Provides ethical principles by which the general public can hold the Health Information Management professional accountable.
Reliability: The website is reliable but can still have wrong information as it is wrote by different people (before publishing someone’s update to the website it is verified to be true or false)
Web sites are just like magazines, newspapers, brochures, menus, or even directions on how to make nitroglycerin from house-hold goods, in that they all have to be put together in such a manner that whoever is reading or browsing over it will be able to clearly distinguish this from that. In this sense, a critique of any particular web site will have justification, while carefully considering also that this is an altogether new medium of information exchange. Now, all of this talk of togetherness is actually a general reference to basic design principles, such as color coordination, if color is used, text size, font choice/ style, art integration, accessibility, and just plain and simple design of the page. For example, it wouldn't be all that appealing to the eyeball if a page being viewed had all the text jumbled up in a corner, so small your eyes were bleeding by the time you figured out that it wasn't even worth the trouble. Darn. It's important to rememeber, especially these days, that what you read is as important as how it looks. Have you ever tried reading an interview in a Raygun magazine? Kinda hard, right? Design totally for its own sake is nice, as art that is, and admittedly it looks cool. However, it's two in the morning and you're standing in line at the corner 7-11 trying to pay for your 40 ounce bottle of Kool-Aid, and you happen to see that your favorite MTV Pearl Crap-clone band is on the cover of this hip magazine and you go to read it, but you can't. It's not because to you failed elementary school three times in two years, but because the maestro in charge decided to get fancy with it and thought it'd be cool if he hid the text under a black box or likewise photograph. I like to loo...
Caveat lector is a Latin phrase meaning, “let the reader beware.” Health information on the internet is growing at an alarming rate. However, some information on the internet is not accurate or current, and unfortunately, many web sites regarding healthcare offer misleading, incomplete, and incorrect information. Many consumers do not have the knowledge to judge and evaluate the quality of online information. This paper aims to discuss how the website WebMD presents information to readers. It will evaluate WebMD according to its source, where was the source obtained; type of funding, is it commercially funded or private; the validity and quality, how valid is the information and can it be verified; and privacy, is your personal information protected and how?
NMC (2008) Code of Professional Conduct: Standards for Conduct, Performance and Ethics, Nursing and Midwifery Council.
Langham, Ph.D., R. Y. "What Are the Causes of Teenage Pregnancy?" livestrong.com. N.p., 16 Aug. 2013. Web. 26 Dec. 2013.
...addition, it provides a massive amount of historical information about the topic in a reliable, non-biased fashion through real documents. Lastly, the good aspects of the website dramatically outweigh any bad aspects of the site. It is a reliable source of learning history because in today’s society, the most accessible way to learn history is through the Internet. There is no way to go back in time to witness history, so it’s imperative that historians utilize the good sources for learning history online, like the one analyzed today about the Salem Witch Trials.
NMC, 2008. The code: Standards of conduct, performance and ethics for nurses and midwives. [online] Available at: [Accessed 13 November 2013].
American Nurses Association (ANA), (2001), Code of Ethics for Nurses, American Nurses Association, Washington, D.C.
Furthermore, there are major health issues surrounding teenage pregnancy. For one, teen mothers are two to six times more likely to have low birth-weight babies, compared to mothers above twenty years of age. This is because teen mothers are often still growing themselves, and physically cannot let the baby grow and develop. Such low birth-weights lead to higher risks of new-born health problems, undevelo...
NMC, 2010. The code: Standards of conduct, performance and ethics for nurses and midwives. [online] Available at: [Accessed 13 November 2013]
There are five different criteria that should always be met when it comes to evaluating a website. These criteria’s include accuracy, authority, objectivity, currency, and coverage (“Criteria Used in Evaluating Web Resources”, 2014). Accuracy is deciphering who is hosting the website, if the website has stated the purpose and audience, and if the information on the site is reliable. A good way to check if the information can be trusted is to compare the facts found on the website with other information and facts found from other internet or print sources. Authority is verifying that the author of the website is real, because if the author is real then the information can usually be trusted as well (“Criteria Used in Evaluating Web Resources”, 2014). To check the authority of a site, the page should be examined for information about the author, note if anyone else has contributed to the website, check for contact information, and see if the author has created other websites with factual information. It is a good sign if there is contact information for the author, because it means someone is taking credit for the information on the page (“Criteria Used in Evaluating Web Resources”, 2014). If someone is taking credit, there is a better chance that the information can be trusted because the author would not want a bad reputation and to be held accountable for sharing false information. The objectivity of a website is deciding if the website is trying to sway the reader’s opinion, and if it is biased. If the advertisements on the site are being supplied by the author of the site, then there is a good chance the page is biased. There should be no bias or opinion located on a site that is supposed to supply factual information (“Criter...
Johnson, T. (2011). S.P.I.D.E.R. A strategy for evaluating websites. Library Media Connection, 29(6), 58-59. Retrieved from http://web.b.ebscohost.com.proxy.devry.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=a1fe208a-6fb8-4e68-8191-7ef041e2d483%40sessionmgr111&vid=25&hid=113
Now that we are living in an ever changing world, technology is viewed as the most resourceful tool in keeping up with the pace. Without the use of technology, communication would be limited to using mail for delivery and encyclopedias for research. Although technology has improved the way we communicate and find information for research, the information is not always valid. Unfortunately, for those of us who use the internet for shopping, research, or reading articles of personal interest the information is not treated the same as a your magazine or book. While such literature is reviewed by an editorial staff, internet literature or information can be published by anyone. In order to reap the full benefit of having the use of technology for any purpose, there are five basic criteria’s one must keep in mind as an evaluating tool for deciding whether or not the particular website is a reliable source for information.
Swann, C., Bowe, K., McCormick, G., Kosmin, M. (2003) Teenage pregnancy and parenthood: a review of reviews. London: HAD.