The document discusses five criteria for evaluating websites: authority, accuracy, objectivity, currency, and coverage. It poses questions to help assess each criteria, such as identifying the author and organization, checking for cited sources, looking for evidence of bias, verifying dates, and determining the depth of information covered. Applying these evaluation criteria can help determine the usefulness and reliability of the information on a website.

1. Website Evaluation Content adapted from: Beck, Susan. The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: or, Why It’s a Good Idea to Evaluate Web Sources . 1997. http://lib.nmsu.edu/instruction/eval.html Image courtesy of Kristen King

2. Spend a few minutes exploring this site. What are your general impressions of the webpage?

5. Are you able to identify the author of this site and/or the organization who created it? If not, how might that affect the usefulness of the information?

7. Does the author cite any of his sources on the site? If not, how might that affect the accuracy of the information?

9. Is there any evidence of bias on this page? If so, how might that affect the usefullness of the information?

11. Is this page up to date? If not, how might that affect the usefulness of the information?

13. Does this site provided detailed/in-depth information? If not, how might that affect the usefulness of the information?