Evaluating the Authority of Web Pages
Does the author of the web site have the education, expertise, or experience to be a trustworthy source or commentator on this subject? Authority can be established by a degree in the discipline, a record of teaching or research in the field, a job in a related area, or significant related experience. Of course many experts don't have formal credentials; they may have developed expertise on their own. And even non-experts (students writing course projects, for example) can be authoritative sources if they base their work on a substantial number of reliable sources.
- Who published the page, and is it separate from the "Webmaster?"
- Check the domain of the page. What institution publishes this page?
- Does the page's author list his or her qualifications/credentials?
- Author: Some web authors will identify themselves and their affiliation on all their web sites. They may also include a link to their home page, where you can examine their professional resume. Others "sign" their work in an HTML comment which does not appear on the web site, but can be seen by viewing the source. The alternative way to identify an author is to delete the file name (the last item in the URL, following the last /). This may take you to author's entry site.
- Organizational Endorsement: Many useful web pages appear as part of organizational sites and reflect the work of that organization. In the case of a professional organization (such as the American Psychological Association or the National Council of Teachers of English), such endorsement provides powerful authority. Other organizations are primarily advocacy groups (the American Civil Liberties Union, the Republican Party) whose web pages will all reflect the particular positions of the group. Commercial sites exist, of course, in order to sell a product or a service. Material from any group's site may be useful, so long as you analyze the group's purposes and possible biases.
Source: library.cornell.edu
Source: wiu.edu
