Writing and Rhetoric
WRTG 1150/1250
Websites 101: Credibility
Websites present unique problems for determining reliability. Reliability includes the concept of ethos or credibility or authority. It can be a challenge finding out who sponsored the website or how current the information is. It can also be frustrating when a website (good or bad) disappears and you cannot duplicate your research. Determining the credibility of a website involves several simple steps:
1. finding the author or sponsor (if possible),
2. determining if the author has any bias or an agenda (which may or may not be a bad thing),
3. reading the Mission Statement (if there is one), and
4. examining the content of the site very closely for internal clues about authorship or bias.
Any or all of these things can give us information that will help us determine whether the information presented is trustworthy.
I. Martin Luther King: Finding the sponsor
1. Go to http://www.martinlutherking.org Looking at the homepage, what facts/information makes this site look reliable?
2. What facts make the site look unreliable?
3. One of the first pieces of information we need to determine the credibility of a website is to find its author or sponsors. Examine the homepage to locate any information you can find on the author or sponsor of the website. Briefly describe what you found.
4. Do the sponsors of the website have a bias? What is it? Does the bias affect the trustworthiness of this website?
II. Going beyond the obvious.
Another way to "get at" the author or sponsor is to locate the webmaster of a site. Wesley A. Fryer has a section on his website that walks you through a couple of techniques for backtracking to find information on the website.
a. Go to Fyer’s website: http://www.wtvi.com/TEKS/03_04_articles/digital_literacy_now.html
b. Read the section entitled “Backtrack: Check the Source”
c. See if you can come up with the NAME of the martinlutherking.org website webmaster. (Not the sponsor)
III. Triangulating information
1. When determining credibility, it can be helpful to read what others have to say. But first, we have to determine who the webmaster of the site www.martinlutherking.org is – if we can. Use the actual website, Google, Wikipedia, your classmates – any resource you can find to come up with the name of the webmaster for http://www.martinlutherking.org
a. Who’s the webmaster? (See your answer to II (c)… or check out the hate mail section of the martinlutherking.org site)
b. Briefly describe how you found the name.
2. I want you to examine two sites that have given information on the webmaster in the past. These two sites are Front Page Magazine and the Southern Poverty Law Center. (You can google the names or use their URLs: http://frontpagemag.com and www.splcenter.org). Roam around the sites to get a feel for the political bias and to determine who their main guys are. Create a matrix on the back of this page which contains the following information for comparison:
a. the sponsor of the site
b. the organization/magazine’s mission or purpose (Look for a mission statement or something like it).
c. the men behind FrontPage and the SPLC,. Note 2-3 pertinent facts about them.
d. the politics of these two men or political stances of their organizations - liberal or conservative
e. the information about or opinion of the martinlutherking.org webmaster (Google his name in conjunction with “Front Page Magazine” and “SPLC”).
f. How current is this information? (check at the top or very end of the article) Is this information current enough for comfort?
QUESTION: Evaluating the information in your matrix, do you find either organization (or both) to be credible sources in general? Why or why not?
3. Both sites have search functions. Enter the name of the webmaster and read what the sites say about him.
a. Do you find either organization (or both) to be credible sources on the webmaster? Why or why not?
b. If sources with differing (even opposite) stances on issues publish the essentially the same information on a topic, what do you think that says about (1) the sources’ information and (2) the sources’ larger purpose?
IV. Other questions about bias
Go to http://www.thekingcenter.org and check out its various links. Read the Mission Statement and the message from the Chairman.
1. Who founded The King Center?
2. Who is the current chairman of the Center?
3. How current is the information on the website?
4. Do the authors of this website [www.thekingcenter.org] have a bias? What is it? Does the bias affect the trustworthiness of this website?
V. Examining the Content
1. Go to http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/ Check out the various links on the website.
a. What’s your first impression of the site?
b. From the look of the site, whom do you think is the primary audience for the site?
c. Who is the sponsor or creator of the site? (Check out the URL or the bottom of the homepage.)
d. What are the credentials of the sponsor or creator?
2. Go to http://www.dhmo.org. Check out the website.
A. Who authors or sponsors www.dhmo.org?
B. Why is it safe to say (as the website does) that “in the absence of sufficient quantities of DHMO, acid rain is not a problem”?
C. WHAT IS DHMO? Try to decipher the chemical formula for dihydrogen monoxide.
(Hint: Think back to your last Chemistry class and mark the chemical notation for the components. Visit http://www.dmturner.org/Teacher/Library/5thText/ChemPart4.htm if you need some help).
=
hydrogen di oxide (or oxygen) mono
3. Briefly discuss why the snowflake and dhmo.rog websites are credible – or not.
February 24, 2011 XXX