Should The Internet Be Trusted?

Should The Internet Be Trusted?

The Internet has become more and more of a favorite place for students to go when searching for sources to use in research papers. This is mostly because of the wide and relatively simple access that the Internet provides to all kinds of information. Why get up and travel all the way to the library when it is so much easier to open a browser window and head to Google? While the Internet can be a wonderful source, and is definitely a fairly new, unique, and versatile way of sharing information, not everything one finds on the free area of the Internet can be trusted. Literally anyone with an Internet connection can put up a webpage in a matter of minutes that would be capable of fooling the unwary Internet surfer. It is crucial when looking for valid sources on the free Internet to look carefully for the purpose of the page, the author(s) of the page, and the institution that backs or produces the page, if any.

One quick way to check the purpose of a webpage is to look for any obvious ads. A webpage that is obviously trying to sell you something is not as likely to be a scholarly webpage. Runway.net has a multitude of ads right on its front page (Cousins homepage). Its purpose is clearly at least partially to sell you something, in this particular case the services of the webmasters in the area of web design. “Linguistic Diversity on the Internet” simply has functional menus leading to the information being presented (Jones homepage). There are no ads and not even any bright, flashy graphics. This article heads straight for the information in a professional manner, lending it a more scholarly feel. While prominently featured ads on a webpage do not necessarily mean that the webpage is a bad source, it should certainly be a cause for a deeper look into the merits of the page.

Another good way to determine if a webpage is a useful source is to investigate the author or authors of the page. If no information at all is listed for the author, the page is useless because its authenticity can not be verified. The authors of Runway.net give no convincing credentials of any kind (Cousins About Us). While they do list their names, contacts, and some information about their background, there is no way to confirm that any of this information is true.