How to Find Reliable Information on the Internet

In the 90's the internet began changing the way we talked to each other. At first it started out as cheesy chat rooms and second rate sites. Laughable photo galleries and smut filled in the rest. Now companies are not deemed established without a web presence. Chances are the local plumber has a dot-com. Nowadays most of us rely on online research or have at least done it before. Whether you just need to finish a research paper, are starting out as a web writer or other professional, or are researching for your own benefit it is important to be to find reliable sources.

So how do you find out if a source is reliable? That's a good question and the answer is very important. You see, currently many schools wont allow children to use multiple web resources since teachers feel it is hard for children to distinguish between factual and fluff. How much easier would life be if they all learned what a good resource looked like. Wait, how much easier would life be if adults learned what a good resource looked like. No matter how socially advanced you are chances are you know at least one person who believes everything they read on the net. If you're lucky they aren't related to you or sit in the cubicle next to yours. Outlined here is a how to guide for finding reliable resources on the internet.

Who wrote it and why?
Any intellectual work should have an author listed whether it is a person or an organization, preferably with a biography link too. If you're citing statistics, medical information, or anything equally important you want to make sure the person you are citing isn't a complete lune. But, don't take their word for it. Once I have found the author of an article I will often research their name in a search engine and match it against their claims. If Dr. So-and-So says he currently teaches at Harvard I'd better find him on their faculty list. This step can usually be skipped if the website is highly respected. For instance, no one will blame you if you're citing an article from Time magazine's site without doing a background check on the author. Another test you can hold the resource to is simply said. Why? Most information is put out directly or in directly to make money or it is a government or nonprofit resource. If you can't find a clear motive for the websites existence other than Joe Schmo likes cocker spaniels maybe it's time to move on.

Is this page even more expired than the milk in the back of the fridge?
Respected sources should always list a release or last updated date. With information constantly moving on the web there is no reason to use a source that hasn't been reviewed since 1997. If you are researching extremely static fields like medicine or politics it is best to use sources no more than a few months old, unless citing historical advances in the information. Keep in mind people build start up sites and leave them all the time. Most likely they're the same people who haven't organized their filing cabinets since 1978. If you want to do a background search on a website try Alexa. Alexa is a site dedicated to tracking the progress of websites. They will give you graphs and other statistics by simply pasting in the URL. Keep in mind they don't always have information on smaller sites and sub domains, but even with sub domains you can at least get a generalization of the site as a whole.

Social book-marking. Hooray for the geeks!
A lot of the time when I'm writing I need answers in fields I'm not an expert in. After all what fun would writing be if I never learned anything from it. While search engines often rank information based on keywords, traffic, etc. they usually don't tell me what companies are the most respected in their fields. Highly technical resources often don't even get the best stuff in the top 100 hits because of all the spam. If found that searching social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us turns up better results. The hits these search engines bring up are hand chosen by the users who probably know more about the topic than a computer program or me. Also, each hit displays how many people have saved it so you can easily tell which hits are noteworthy. Unlike bookmarks in their browsers, links posted here are deemed worthy of sharing by the people who marked them. They are often unusual or hard to find.

Seek out the intellectuals.
Once you've found out who's at the top of the totem poll in a certain subject you should stay there. Try to draw information from the three top resources. Good examples are government agencies, top news resources, top selling companies, university databases, and economical analysts. Most everyone else will just be citing their work anyways and the further you get from the original information the more likely it is to be skewed. Kind of like when we played telephone in grade school. A message may start out as, "Melissa likes green beans." But, ten seven year olds later it comes out, "Clarissa blows fried cheese."

Cross reference. Cross reference. Cross reference!
Before I quote any information I make sure I find it somewhere else on the net. Making sure the information holds up in two different resources means it is 200% more reliable. And, many informative sites can lead you to their paper references as well. If a fact seems out of place or is limited to one source it probably isn't factual or at the very least proven factual. It is very easy for an author to take information they've gleaned and turn out a theory on a topic. Which, is great as long as they state it as a theory.

Think past the obvious keywords.
If you've been searching long and hard for reliable information and can't find it consider using different keywords or search techniques. You can try adding more words to your search to narrow it down, or less words to get broader results. Also, boolean logic is very helpful. Sometimes if you search using a clearly stated question someone will have posted it for you. Like for instance, "How do airplanes fly?" will most likely get you very specific information about aerodynamics and jet engines instead of LAX's website. If you still turn up nothing try alternate terms for your topic. Another method is searching for people who may specialize in that topic. Example, if you want to learn about heart attacks but find most of the sites listed are fatty or purely advertisements try searching for cardiologists. Experts will often have tutorial type information on their sites. Don't forget to check for credibility once you do find it.

Learn when to quit.
I hate to say it, but sometimes it's downright impossible to find intellectual material on the internet. I just can't understand why a place crawling with MySpace junkies doesn't have more intellectuals. There are still some highly specialized or rare interests that aren't satisfactorily covered so you may have to give up the search and go to a library. Don't look at it as defeat however. Look at it as your opportunity to do the homework and build the first site on the topic at hand, making you spare cash through advertisements down the road.

So when you're out there researching on the web remember it is easy to throw out opinions and loosely gathered facts, but what the world needs is an internet where we can all find facts and clearly labeled theories so we can all learn from it.