ENG 112: College Composition II (Walshak-Loudoun)

Search Google for your topic keywords. Look for government, education, and/or organization webpages as well as news/magazine publications. 

For more information, please see NOVA Libraries' guide on How to Evaluate Websites.

Before using information found on a webpage, consider the following criteria to evaluate its credibility.

• Who is the author(s)? What are his/her/their qualifications?
• Who created the website? Does it appear the site creator is trying to stay hidden?
• Why was the website created? Motives can include to make money through advertising, spread mis/disinformation, promote a political candidate or a social movement. Try to think of the context in which the website was set up.
• How is content generated? Follow the money by identifying who is paying for the site.
• When was the site last updated?
• Are there any e-mail addresses in the contacts or "about us" page?
• Is there a privacy policy or "terms of reference" statement on the site?
• Are there many misspellings or typos on the site? Does the site use "boilerplate" language? Think what that indicates about the credibility of the content.
• How reliable is the information?

Scholarly resources may not be apparent if you simply "Google." You can increase the likelihood that an authoritative resource appears at the top of your results by limiting your search by filetype (filetype:pdf) or domain (site:gov or site:edu or site:org). Alternatively, you can begin your search at Google Scholar. 

Internet Archive Scholar is a good alternative to Google Scholar. For scientific literature, there is Semantic Scholar. 

What about AI? Remember that when you use a generative AI tool like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini (which can sometimes be useful, for example, as a starting point for developing a topic), there is a very good chance you will retrieve false information or "hallucinations." Be sure to triple-check anything you find from any generative AI tool.

You might even try Perplexity, ResearchRabbit, or Elicit, three Artificial Intelligence (AI) Research Assistants. You may have to "sign up," but it's free and worth experimenting with this AI tool. We suggest these tools over generic AI tools as they are designed for research purposes and display the source for the resources they present to users.