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Public Health: Web Sources

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In a nutshell

You need to apply a critical eye to information you find on the web. There are many evaluation criteria, but these 2 are most important:

Authorship: People or organizations qualified to know the topic 
Currency (of the document itself): Recent info is usually best

 

Info from websites: Can you trust it?

To increase the chances of finding information to use that is true, complete, easy-to-use, up-to-date, not biased, and not a hoax, try these steps:

Probe for bias: Ask yourself if the person or organization responsible for the information could have an interest or agenda that is motivating the writing.
Compare: Don’t use just one source. Use multiple sources and compare the coverage. 
Corroborate: If your topic is controversial or includes numbers and statistics, see if you can find another source to back it up that has the same numbers, or similar evidence.
Use your background beliefs: Check information against what you already know and understand. The more outlandish a claim is, the more research you will need to do to make sure it is true.