In the past many professers told students not to use material found on the internet in their research. This is becoming more difficult as the web is increasingly used to disseminate scholarly research. So, as with books and journal articles it is vitally important to evaluate web sites.

Most of the evaluation tools for other resources apply to web resources as well. But there are more things you should pay attention to and techniques you can use.

First principle is: ANYONE can put ANYTHING online and make it look good! Therefore checking the Authority of the author/ sponsor is key. Accuracy, Objectivity, Currency and Coverage complete the criteria.

An excellent Evaluation Criteria checklist can be found at the New Mexico State University Library website,http://lib.nmsu.edu/instruction/evalcrit.html, created by librarian Susan Beck. This is part of her tutorial The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: or, Why It's a Good Idea to Evaluate Web Sources  (1997) http://lib.nmsu.edu/instruction/eval.html