Barberio's Web Page

    With the Internet democratically including information from all ends of the spectrum---authoritative to fictional, how do you get a low signal-to-noise ratio?  First, you raise your common sense antennae. Take heed of these tips on wading through the nonsense (noise) and locating credible information (signal) on-line.
 

1. Each web site has an agenda.  Is the site’s information a sales pitch or is it legitimate research?  The creator could be a professional complete with credentials or a biography.  Or the creator could be anyone with a computer and ability to write.  A rough rule of thumb, depending on the purpose of your research: Be healthily skeptical of using sites which contain vague, incomplete and questionable information, are poorly updated or maintained, and lack legitimate resources or bibliographies.
2. Try to verify the information through other on-line research, the library, experts or your own understanding.  Can you find at least three sources which agree with each other?
3. Check out web sites which review and evaluate other sites.  Try: Argus Clearinghouse at http://www.clearinghouse.net or Mining Company at http://miningco.com/ or Readers Digest’s LookSmart at http://www.looksmart.com/
4. Visit these excellent sites that discuss Internet credibility: Evaluating Internet Information at http://www-medlib.med.utah.edu/navigator/discovery/eval.html or Evaluating Quality on the Net at http://www.tiac.net/users/hope (an informative, helpful site)  or Thinking Critically About Wide Web Resources at http: www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/college/instruct/critical.htm  or Internet Source Validation Project at http://www.stemnet.nf.ca/Curriculum/Validate/valid.html
5. Keep your searches specific to avoid excessive results.  When you use search engines such as Yahoo! learn what search requirements are, i.e. using words like “and”, “or” between search terms (for example typing: paralegal or legal and assistant in the search box will find either the word paralegal or words legal assistant).  Also, lower case letters and singular words will turn up more hits than uppercase capital letters and plural words will.
6. Junk mail scams, hoaxes and rumors should be ignored—none of them are true, so forwarding the e-mails to friends is not helpful and clogs mailboxes.  Check out these sites to verify the suspicious: The CIAC Internet Hoaxes Page and Internet Chain Letters Page at http://ciac.llnl.gov or Rob Rosenberger’s Computer Virus Myths at http://www.kumite.com/myths/ or April Fools on the Net at http://www.2meta.com/april-fools/

Goldsborough, Reid. “Internet Information May Warrant a Double Check.” National Paralegal Reporter  1997 Vol. 22, Number 3: 8

“Two Handbooks For Communications Professionals.” The Editorial Eye January 1998: 12

Ivey, Keith. “Untangling the Web: Is the Internet Like A Library?” The Editorial Eye February 1997

Ivey, Keith. “Untangling the Web: Hoaxes, Scams And Rumors.” The Editorial Eye April 1997