Guidelines for Online Sources in My Courses

Evaluating Approved Sources

• Assuming that I have granted permission to use the source in question, it must be cited fully in the bibliography or references section of the research paper in question, and this citation must be accompanied by a paragraph evaluating the source. This means including all of the following.
• Identifying the author and publisher of the source (in addition to simply listing the URL of the web page where the source is located). You should try to determine the author’s affiliation and location; the odds of an objective analysis of the Ecuador-Peru dispute are much lower for a web page served from inside either Ecuador or Peru (or a web page maintained by an Ecuadorean or Peruvian living abroad), all else being equal

• Discussing any potential biases or viewpoints that this author and/or publisher may have that would limit the value of the source, and evaluating whether or not you see any evidence of these problems in the source. For example, you should attempt to determine the viewpoint of the author – is he or she trying to analyze a situation objectively, or trying to present a strongly held personal opinion? (note that many people pushing their own opinion will try to present it in a way that disguises it as an unbiased, objective analysis)
• Discussing any other potential or actual issues with the source, such as evaluating the recency of the source. For example, how current is the author’s analysis? Any web pages are put up and then forgotten by their authors, meaning that they quickly lose currency and are not changed in response to changing events.
• Failure to evaluate Internet sources in this way will lead to the assessment of penalties against the assignment’s grade.

• Additional Resources

• The following links offer advice to consider when evaluating resources found on the Internet – and might be able to help you avoid making embarrassing mistakes by trusting unreliable information sources