Purpose/Objectivity

• Currency
• Relevance/Coverage
• Authority
• Accuracy
• Purpose/Objectivity

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Ask yourself these questions to evaluate the purpose and objectivity of a Web source

• Why was this page put on the web?

  Look for advertising that is not clearly separate from the other information.

  Try to determine the purpose of the site. Information that is published to the Web to inform may be more reliable than information that is published to persuade.

• Can you determine possible bias?
  
  Biased information is not necessarily invalid, but it needs to be verified closely to find facts that may be distorted or left out.
  
  
• Can you find possible conflict of interest?

  Use the author's and publishing organization's authority to determine this.

Example

Examples of websites with possible bias:

http://zip4tweens.com

http://www.beefnutrition.org/

Chevron.com/