Or, well, maybe not. Here's a good, brief article on how to teach students to recognize sites purveying questionable information. A centerpiece of most information literacy programs in academic libraries is teaching students to distinguish between popular and scholarly writing, and a critical element of that training over the past several years has been how to know if information on the Internet is trustworthy. I like the tips in the article linked above, especially used in combination with these more traditional techniques, as neatly summarized by the Cornell University Library.
Posted by Stacie at April 16, 2005 09:40 AM | TrackBackHi, Stacie,
What an interesting and informative post! I confess that, although I use subject catalogs at LUMINA just about every day, I haven't really given any thought to how they are generated.
And I'm not very good at using them - I always feel I'm missing important references because I don't "think like the catalog does." Might be a good topic for a grad student info session (although maybe I'd be the only one there...)
Posted by: Sno Cones at April 16, 2005 02:30 PMA composition instructor told me just today that he has had more than one student try to use a site called theDEA.org--students assume it's legit, even perhaps thinking it's DEA.gov. But the site turns out tto be a libertarian-styled personal site advocating decriminalization of illegal drgus liek Ecstasy.
Posted by: Tim at April 18, 2005 08:58 PMTim, that's a great example of how intentionally misleading some sites are. I'm not one to decry the evils of the Internet, but it's amazing how much easier it is to get all sorts of junk information. You take the good with the bad, I guess.
Posted by: stacie at April 19, 2005 05:12 PMIntentionally deceiving? Nonsense. The politics, origins and intent of the site are quite explicit. (The domain name is a play on an old joke: The Drug Enjoying Americans.)
Don't blame me if your public college produces incompetent students. :-)
Posted by: TheDEA.org at June 1, 2005 05:56 PM