Blog#5

I indeed have been introduced to many new resources over the past few weeks, many resources that are readily available on the Internet. I think that if I had used Google to search for statistics or country profiles that, I would not have found any of the resources we've used in our class thus far. I have a hard enough time finding the information I need through our school's library databases and or other databases subscribed by the local libraries I have been using. Point being, there is A LOT of information out there and I don't have the time to weed through 1,00s of hits/links if I were to conduct a Google or other search engine search on the web.

So, how do people researching statistics and biographical information determine if the information they have found on the Internet is accurate? Well, that depends. If the information is from an on-line source, my recommendation would be to pay close attention to the type of website. Safer to use/trust websites for stats in particular would be those ending in .gov or .edu (i.e. http://www.fedstats.gov/, http://www.bls.gov/bls/other.htm).

In doing this blog, I came across a good evaluating websites for accuracy website: http://lib.nmsu.edu/instruction/evalcrit.html. Check it out. See how it ends in .edu? It is a scholarly website. Or try this one, from Cornell (it is more esthetically pleasing with the chart layout): http://www.library.cornell.edu/olinuris/ref/research/webcrit.html.

The info available on the web is not only overwhelming, but sometimes ridiculous. Try to stick to familiar websites that would steer you away from your academic goal, and all should be fine. Or, of course, go to the Ref. section of your local library and eliminate a lot of your worry. (I just did a plug for us library peeps, in case you didn't notice. ;)