10.2: Reading Skills- Using Online Sources

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In this unit, you will start to work towards writing longer pieces, such as essays and reports. As you write longer texts, you will want to do some research to support your own arguments and ideas. For many students, the first place to look is often the internet.

There are over a billion websites in the world, and anyone with a computer or a smartphone can access them. The internet can be a great source of information—if you use it carefully. Keep in mind that anyone with basic computer skills can create a website, and anyone can say whatever they want; there is no control over the internet. It is possible that you will find information that is not correct, out of date, or extremely biased.

Online Research: Questions to Ask

The following questions will help you to decide whether or not a website is a good source of information.

What is the domain name?

What does the website address (the URL) end with? In Canada, educational sites end in .ca, and government sites end in .gc.ca; a site ending in .org is likely to be a non-profit site, such as a charity. Most sites you will find, however, end in .com. This signifies that these sites are businesses. The purpose of the website might be to sell you something.

Example: You are writing about the health benefits of carrot juice. You find a site that lists a vast number of reasons why you should drink large amounts of carrot juice. On closer examination, you find that the site ends in .com, and that it is a business—it sells carrot juice online, and the goal of the website is to encourage you to buy.

Who is responsible for the website?

Try to find out who maintains the website. Is it an individual, a group, a college? If there is an About section, see what you can find out about the author of the material. Ask yourself whether the author is biased, whether the site is giving you facts or opinions, and what the author’s purpose is.

Example: You are looking for information on the legalization of marijuana in Canada. You find a site telling you that there are no health concerns associated with marijuana, and that it is safer than cigarettes or alcohol. You look further, and you discover that the site is maintained by a group that has been putting pressure on the government to legalize marijuana. You realize that the group’s information is likely to be biased.

How current is the website?

Scroll down to the bottom of the website to find out when it was last updated. You don’t want to include out-of-date information in your writing.

Example: You are writing about rates of lung cancer in B.C., and you are trying to find out whether these are increasing or decreasing. Your research is going well, until you realize that you are looking at statistics from 2003. The information you need might have changed since that time.

Is the information accurate?

Don’t believe everything you read on the internet! There may well be mistakes in what you find. If you have a feeling that something is not quite right, trust yourself. Try searching for the information somewhere else, perhaps on a more reliable website.

Example: You are writing about smoking. You find a website that tells you that 3,600 Canadians smoke cigarettes every day. You think this sounds too low, so you go to a more reliable source: Statistics Canada, a government site. Here you learn that the true figure is around 3,600,000. The first website had clearly made a mistake with the number.

A Note on Wikipedia

Everyone loves Wikipedia! For many people, it is the first place they look for information. With over five million articles, Wikipedia is a good starting point. However, keep in mind that Wikipedia articles can be written by anyone. The information you read may not always be accurate. Wikipedia can be useful to get an overview of a subject, but use it with caution.

You Try It!

You are going to try a webquest: a search for online information on a particular topic.

First, choose a topic related to health that you would like to research. This could be (a) a medical condition such as heart disease or diabetes, (b) an activity that puts health at risk such as smoking or drinking, or (c) a health food such as garlic or carrot juice.

Write your topic here: ___________________________________________

Second, decide what you would you like to know about your topic. For example, if you choose diabetes, would you like to know how to prevent diabetes? If you chose smoking, would you like to learn ways to stop smoking? If you chose carrot juice, would you like to know how much to drink?

Narrow your topic here: ___________________________________________

Now, do an online search for five websites that give you information about your topic. You will need to think about how to search for information. Narrow your search as much as possible. If you enter diabetes, you will get over 98 million results. If you narrow it to diabetes prevention for women over 50 you will get 2.6 million—still a lot, but the results will be far more specific.

As you search, think about the kind of information you get. Think, too, about how useful and reliable the website it. Use the table to record your results.

Name of website (URL)	What did I learn from this website?	How useful is this website? What is the domain name? Who is responsible for the site? How current is it? How accurate is it?