A Touchy Topic: Plagiarism | DukeWrites As the semester comes to a close, many students feel pressed for time and are overwhelmed by exam preparation and writing their final projects or essays. In students’ frenzy of writing those last essays, the writers may fail to cite sources or may cite them improperly. Doing this, however, may be grounds for being accused of plagiarism. If you have any questions about proper citation practices, take a few moments to review an online resource from the Duke Library webpage. Like this: Like Loading...
Quality Criteria for Website Excellence - World Best Website Awards Quality Criteria for Website Excellence World Best Website Awards Websites are evaluated using a 100 factor scoring system. Stars are allocated according to the total score received. STAR 1 - Functionality (20%) Accessibility 001. breadth of browser compatibility 002. minimum & maximum monitor resolutions 003. plain text/HTML alternate entry paths 004. appeal to universal audience - multilingual translations, cultural sensitivity, disability access & services Speed & Bandwidth Sensitivity 005. overall page sizes & complexity 006. average download times 007. download order & image redraws 008. wait to first reaction/interaction times HTML Quality 009. clean HTML with no faulty code 010. workability of active x, rollovers, applets, etc. 011. page titles, descriptions, keywords & tags 012. Navigation & Links 013. navigation functionality & clarity 014. link integrity 015. quality & depth of links provided 016. external Vs internal link ratios for access to core information Legality Integration
Peer Review What Does "Peer Reviewed" or "Refereed" Mean? Peer Review is a process that journals use to ensure the articles they publish represent the best scholarship currently available. When an article is submitted to a peer reviewed journal, the editors send it out to other scholars in the same field (the author's peers) to get their opinion on the quality of the scholarship, its relevance to the field, its appropriateness for the journal, etc. Publications that don't use peer review (Time, Cosmo, Salon) just rely on the judgement of the editors whether an article is up to snuff or not. Note:This is an entirely different concept from "Review Articles." How do I know if a journal is peer reviewed? Usually, you can tell just by looking. They even use a cute little referee's jersey icon: Test these periodicals in Ulrichs: Advances in Dental Research Clinical Anatomy Molecular Cancer Research Journal of Clinical Electrophysiology
Helpful Hints to Help You Evaluate the Credibility of Web Resources Anyone, in theory, can publish on the Web; therefore, it is imperative for users of the Web to develop a critical eye to evaluate the credibility of Internet information. Searching for sources on the WWW involves using a search engine, a directory, or some combination of these two. Because there is so much information on the Web, good and bad, finding what you want is not an exact science and can be time consuming. According to Nicholas C. Burbules, "....the Web is not an ordinary reference system; it poses some unique and, in many respects, unprecedented conditions that complicate the task of sorting out dependable from undependable information--and even complicates the notion that we have a clear sense of that distinction. Developing a keen sense of the credibility of sources, based on such clues as connection of author to the subject, audience, source of publication, and documentation of supporting evidence, can also help you evaluate print and other types of sources. 1. 2. 3. 4.
Home - Evaluating Information Found on the Internet - Library Guides at Johns Hopkins University The World Wide Web offers information and data from all over the world. Because so much information is available, and because that information can appear to be fairly “anonymous”, it is necessary to develop skills to evaluate what you find. When you use a research or academic library, the books, journals and other resources have already been evaluated by scholars, publishers and librarians. This guide discusses the criteria by which scholars in most fields evaluate print information, and shows how the same criteria can be used to assess information found on the Internet. (With gratitude to Elizabeth E.
Evaluating Internet Resources How do I evaluate the quality of websites? How can I teach students to evaluate websites? Where can I find checklists for evaluation? Evaluating Internet Resources There's lots of good information on the Internet, but you will also find opinions, misconceptions, and inaccurate information. How do you judge the quality of Internet resources? Read Evaluating Information: An Information Literacy Challenge by MaryAnn Fitzgerald. Do you believe everything you read? Look for what Wikipedia calls the "verifiability" of information. Read Wicked or Wonderful: Revisiting Wikipedia by Annette Lamb. Misleading Websites Some websites were designed to be intentionally misleading. Read How to Spot a Fake Website by Garen Arnold (2009). Use the following websites to explore the issue of Internet content. Fake news has become a popular form of satire. The Onion The Daily Show from Comedy Central Colbert Report from Comedy Central A few websites are addressing the issue of misleading information. Try it!
Distinguishing Propaganda and Misinformation - Evaluating Information Found on the Internet - Library Guides at Johns Hopkins University "Nobody's perfect" is an excellent rule of thumb in most cases but a bad omen when you're looking for information on the no-editorial-control Internet. Misinformation differs from propaganda in that it always refers to something which is not true. It differs from disinformation in that it is "intention neutral": it isn't deliberate, it's just wrong or mistaken. "It's going to require numerous IRA agents." -- George W. Bush commenting on Al Gore's tax plan, which he felt would lead to a larger Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and probably not a larger Irish Republican Army (IRA), in a campaign speech given at Greensboro, N.C., Oct. 10, 2000 (Read the Salon archive of "Bushisms") One of the most popular forms of misinformation on the Internet, especially e-mail, is the passing along of urban legends. "If you're driving after dark and see an oncoming car with its headlights turned off, DO NOT flash your lights at them. Urban legends, unlike Mr.
Web Research Guide : Criteria for Evaluating Web Sites 1. Who wrote/published the information on the site? Because anyone can publish on the Web, it's important that you first identify the source—the author of the information on the site. Ask yourself: Who is the author/publisher? 2. The information you find on a Web site does not necessarily pass through the hands of editors, fact-checkers, or reviewers, so it's up to you to determine the value of the site's content and presentation. Content What is the site's purpose: to persuade, inform, or entertain? Navigation and Presentation Is the site well organized and easy to navigate? Continue
Evaluating Web Pages: Techniques to Apply & Questions to Ask 1. What can the URL tell you? Techniques for Web Evaluation : 1. Before you leave the list of search results -- before you click and get interested in anything written on the page -- glean all you can from the URLs of each page. 2. 2. 1. INSTRUCTIONS for Truncating back a URL: In the top Location Box, delete the end characters of the URL stopping just before each / (leave the slash). Continue this process, one slash (/) at a time, until you reach the first single / which is preceded by the domain name portion. 3. Check the date on all the pages on the site. 3. 1. What kinds of publications or sites are they? Are they real? 3. Expect a journal article, newspaper article, and some other publications that are recent to come from the original publisher IF the publication is available on the web. Look at the bottom of such articles for copyright information or permissions to reproduce. 4. 1. a. Type or paste the URL into alexa.com's search box. b. 1. 2. 5. 1. 2. WHY?