The document emphasizes the importance of critically evaluating internet resources for academic writing, as they are not always vetted for authority and validity like library resources. It provides guidelines for assessing web resources, including analyzing the URL, publisher, author, and the content's reliability and purpose. The text also encourages students to consider the date of information and potential biases in the material presented online.

1. Academic writing 11

2. Using the Internet as a resource for writing
When you use reading lists and the library to find the resources you
need for completing assignments you can reasonably assume that the
resources have been vetted for their authority and validity.
Academic staff have decided that certain sources represent
authoritative texts for you to read.
This is because these books and articles have been written by respected
and experienced specialists in the field, whether your studies are in
academic, professional or vocational subjects.

3. Using the Internet as a resource for writing
Unfortunately, you cannot make the same kind of assumptions about resources
that you access via the Internet. There are a number of obvious ways in which
resources you find using the Internet may be very different from the those you
would get from the library. For example:
• they are generally not monitored for their quality;
• they do not give obvious clues about the authority of the text;
• they may be more concerned with presenting an image rather than
• academic credibility;
• they may include a mix of both written and visual texts;
• they link easily and quickly to other related texts.

4. Using the Internet as a resource for writing
We need to make a distinction here between using the Internet to find your
own resources and using web-based resources which have been monitored
and provided by the lecturers and tutors in your department.
You may find that academic staff put resources on the Internet for you to
access.
These may be lecture notes or other material which has been vetted and
sanctioned as appropriate for you to use.
Obviously, because they are recommended texts, there is no need to
approach them with caution.

5. Using the Internet as a resource for writing
When you use the Internet to do your own research you need to
develop some understanding of how to evaluate the validity and
authority of the sites that you visit.
Once you have found a site that you think you might like to refer to in
your written work, you need to evaluate it and decide whether you can
reasonably regard it as an authoritative source.
The next section should help you to do this.

6. Evaluating web resources
URL is short for ‘universal resource locator’. It is the address that you
type in when you are looking for a particular website.
For example, http://www.open.ac.uk will take you to the website of the
Open University, UK.
If you do not know the URL you can use a search engine like Google,
Yahoo or Lycos, to search for the name of the site. The name will
usually be displayed with the URL.
You can then click on the URL to get to the site.

7. Evaluating web resources
If you know what to look for, the URL can give you a lot of very useful
information about the site and help you to decide whether you can rely on the
information it contains.
It can tell you whether the site is:
• an academic one: look for the ending .ac.edu
• a commercial one: look for the endings .com or .co
• a charity or non-profit making organization: look for the ending .org
• a government organization: look for the ending .gov
It can also tell you the site’s country of origin, for example ‘au’ applies to sites in
Australia.

8. The publisher
The web address also tells you who published the page. You will find
this name after http://www.
Look out for web pages which have been published within university
websites or the websites of professional organizations.
These are likely to be more authoritative than commercial sites for
academic purposes.

9. Personal web pages
Is it a personal web page? Using a search engine to find the personal
web page of an author you have been introduced to on your course can
be a very good way of finding up-to-date publications by recognized
authors.
You can sometimes download draft papers from personal web pages.

10. The author
Who wrote the page? You will often find an email address at the
bottom of the page telling you the name of the person who wrote, or is
responsible for, the page.
When academic staff put resources, course materials and bibliographies
on the Internet for their students these can sometimes be accessed by
people outside the institution.

11. Authority and reliability
Does this person seem to be a reliable authority? What organization do they belong to? What have
they published? What kinds of sites do the links on the page take you to? Asking questions like
these helps you to get a feel for the kind of person who is responsible for a web page.
This helps you to make a judgement about whether you should trust the information. People often
make links from their own web pages to relevant organizations, groups or discussion lists.
Following the links from a web page can often give you some idea about the standing of its author
in the wider academic or professional community. Do the links on the page take you forwards or
backwards to authoritative bodies?
For example, following links to ‘Home’, which you will normally find on any web page, may take you
to the home page of a prestigious university, or to the home page of a commercial company.
This will help you to decide how far you can trust this site and how appropriate it is to use it as a
resource.

12. Date
Is the page up to date? You will usually find a date at the end of the
page telling you when it was last updated. You need to be careful about
using material from pages which have not been updated within the last
12 months. It could be out of date.

13. Purpose
Why do you think this page was created? What is its purpose? Is it to
inform, publicize, explain, add to debates, or is it for marketing
purposes?
In terms of your research, the former is likely to be more useful – and
authoritative – than the latter.

14. Omissions
What seems to be missing from this website? What do these omissions tell you
about the story the author of the website wants to tell? Institutional websites
often go to great lengths to present a positive picture of an activity associated
with their institution. For example, the website of an academic department
might enable you to access pages about some particular research success, but is
less likely to take you to pages which offer a critique of that research. You need
to be careful about taking things at their face value when you access material
and resources on the Internet. They may present a one-sided perspective
which will not be very useful when you come to refer to this work in your
assignment.

15. Exercise- Evaluating web resources
Use a search engine to find a web resource that you might use in one of your assignments. Now evaluate the
site in terms of:
• URL
• Publisher
• Author
• Personal web pages
• Authority and reliability
• Purpose
• Date
• Links to other pages
• Omissions
Would you use this page as a resource in your written work?
How would you reference the page?