20. Evaluating The Read/Write Web

Now that we are all aware of just how easy it is to publish on the Internet (blogs, Wikipedia edits, YouTube videos, etc.) does this change how we approach information we read on the web? For me, it does! In the past, most "published" works - that is, articles and books - went through an editorial process before they were released to a wide audience. This doesn't mean that they were all perfectly factual with no errors at all, it just means that someone other than the author saw the material and approved it for publishing. Now, a single blog post can reach just as many people as a single article printed in Time, Newsweek or any "peer-reviewed" journal - with no one but the author ever seeing it before publication. How do you ever trust what you read on the Internet then?
Well, in short, you don't. Part of the side-effect of this self-publishing phenomenon is that you are never faced with just one source for any information. Checking facts by comparing what multiple people have to say about a topic is just one way to evaluate information that you find on the Internet. It's not a bad idea to do so when you find information anywhere. There is a reason our teachers asked us to use several sources for those pesky research papers!
You can also do a "reputation check". If the site looks like it is providing the most authoritative information on a subject, check who the author is. Google him/her. See what else they have written, what others have written about them and what their backgrounds are.
Sometimes, you just have to take what you see on the 'net with a grain of salt. Stephen Abrams, of SirsiDynix, posted a press release about the information being spread on YouTube about vaccinations. The results were that almost half of the videos that were studied contained information that contradicts the "best scientific information at large". This means that people who consulted YouTube for medical information (not the best idea in the first place, really...) were not getting the whole picture when it comes to an important medical decision.
So, how do you evaluate information you find on blogs or Wikipedia - knowing that the information is put there by a human who has biases and is not perfect? Below are 2 resources that you can read to help you evaluate blogs and other user- and individual-created content as well as Wikipedia articles.

Resources

• Evaluation Skills in the Web 2.0 Information Landscape
• Evaluating information found in Wikipedia