Credibility of Information from Internet

Credibility of Information from Internet

Sohrab Daver

University of Phoenix

Abstract

Internet has gained tremendous significance and dependability in today's world. It has become a usual source of information. It provides lots of information on any desired subject. Majority of the users believe that this information is accurate, reliable and credible, just because they could find it, online. A user takes a risk by believing this information without evaluating its credibility. Just because it's found on the Internet doesn't mean it is reliable and trustworthy. The credibility of information should be evaluated before using of it.

This paper suggests ten ways of determining the credibility and accuracy of information on the internet.

Internet has quickly become a viable technology used by an estimated 130 million people in 171 countries for a variety of communication and information sharing tasks.(University of Phoenix, 2007, ADM Digital Library) The accuracy of the information should to be evaluated before making its use.

Following methods can help evaluate the credibility of information obtained from the Internet.

1. Evaluation of Source:

I would consider this method one of the most important methods for evaluating credibility. The source needs to be genuine. Information obtained from a reputed publication is always trustworthy. For example, the publishers like, Mc-Grwa-Hill, Wiley, Springer Verlag, Cambridge University Press, etc. are pretty reliable sources. Information published by scholarly journals such as those published by professional recognized societies, (Ronald B Standler 2003-2004) are reliable and can be termed as credential. Seeking medical advice from the internet without evaluating the source can be very dangerous. The research from University College London (UCL) has shown that many people would be in a better state of health if they followed advice from their doctor rather than relying on information found online. (Ref: 1)

2. Evaluating the Author

The author needs to have enough experience about what he is writing or talking about. The information can be considered credible if he has high qualification and lot of experience in his area of expertise. Also common sense plays a very important role in this type of evaluation. For example, I would not consider an article on Law credible unless the author was a professor of law, or was an experienced legal practitioner with recognized qualifications.

3. Evaluating by Comparison

Trust and test your instincts. If you think the author and the source of the document is not very well know, but your instincts tell you that this might be the right information, to a pertaining subject, you should try and compare it with any other genuine source or author, in the similar field. Many times it happens that some authors or experts are in their initial stages of their career, or their work had not been exposed enough; and recognized as credible. This doesn't mean that their work cannot be trusted. It simply becomes easy to compare and evaluate the views and opinion of two authors on a common concept.

4. Evaluating Genuineness of the article

Anonymous work has uncertain credibility. Anonymous work tends to be suspicious. If the author is not ready to list his name and information, this means he is not ready to take any responsibility of his work. One can conclude that the author considers that his work is not genuine and can be of poor quality or even bogus.

5. Evaluating References

If the author doesn't provide accurate reference to his/her article or the references provided do not represent a genuine source, then it could be assumed that the information