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Research Portal G5: Analyse

Analyse/Select

Students will be able to :

  • Think critically about the quality of the information they find
  • Understand there are techniques and strategies to apply to evaluate the information they find

Think Critically

Who?   What?   When?

These three questions are great starting points for evaluating websites
(sourced from Common Sense Media)
Who?
                        
Who created this website? Often, this information is located at the very bottom of a webpage.
           
    • Can the author be trusted?
    • Is the author an expert in the field?
    • Are there spelling/grammatical errors?
    • Can you contact the author?


What?
      
  • Does it contain useful information?
  • Does it help answer my questions?
  • Would you bookmark it for future use?
  • Is it easy to read and understand?
    • Is it easy to navigate?


When?
      
    • When was the site created?
    • How recently was the site updated?
    • Do the links work?

You may wish to use a tool like Way Back Machine to find out when the site was created. You may also find this information at the very bottom of a webpage.

Recognise URL endings

We can gain a lot of clues from looking at the URL of the specific website we have found. The website suffix can help us decide if a site is:

 

 

Wikipedia is an amazing online encyclopedia of information that is updated and moderated by many authors. It is an excellent place to find general information and facts, because they are often referenced back to the original sources.

Researchers need to be careful about using Wikipedia as the only source of information, due to the fact that anyone can edit it.

Bias

Good researchers use multiple sources of information to gain a balanced perspective of an issue. Relying on one source can lead to inaccurate or misleading information.

When searching for answers to your research questions, be sure to look at a range of sources - of different types if possible (books, websites, videos, interviews etc) - to ensure you can present a balanced answer.

Citations

Image credits:
Analyze Icon made by Freepik from www.flaticon.com 
Person - Creative Commons - Attribution (CC BY 3.0)
Question Mark - Creative Commons - Attribution (CC BY 3.0)
Clock - Attribution (CC-BY-3.0) by Henry Ryder, Thomas Le Bas, Dylan Voisard, from The Noun Project