Once you have located information on the Internet, you need to evaluate if the information is reliable. Keep in mind that anyone can publish information on the Internet. You need to check to see that what you are reading is correct.  You can do this by pretending to be a reporter. Good reporters will check their sources. In many cases they will be sure they can confirm from more than one source that the information they have is correct, not biased, incomplete or out of date. So how do you evaluate a web source?

Authority of the source

First consider where the material is published. If it appears on a web site of a National or International organization, such as The American Heart Association or the Center for Disease Control (CDC) the material is likely to be accurate. These types of web sites will end in "org" or "gov." However, this does not mean all org and gov sites publish reliable material.

Another source of information will be educational web sites. These types of sites will end in "edu" (North America). In most cases the material published will be more accurate than from traditional commercial Internet sites. Keep in mind that many universities also provide web space for their students to publish materials. Once again, evaluate the source.

The next thing to look for is the author(s) of the article. Are they known experts in their field? Also ask yourself "why did they write the article?" Is it to provide facts and information on a subject, or is the article biased towards one view?

Accuracy

The next thing to check is the accuracy of the information. This can be done by confirming the facts with another authority. Most reliable articles will include a bibliography to help you verify what you have read is true.

Objectivity

In some cases, articles on the web provide only information from only one point of view. This is what we call a bias. Even if there is a bibliography at the end of an article, you need to do some checking on your own to be sure that you have learned all the facts.

Current information

Finally, be sure the information is current. This is particularly true for scientific material. What is known today can change tomorrow. Locate the latest material by looking for published dates or last revised dates on the web sites. If there are statistics quoted in the article, when and where they obtained.