How to Evaluate Web Pages
As access to computers has become more widespread and the World Wide Web has grown, more people turn to the internet for information. Although much of the material on the internet is carefully researched and accurate, not all of it is credible or useful. Putting information on the web does not require the same review process that is involved in publishing books or articles.
Therefore, anyone who wishes to use a web site for academic purposes needs to evaluate it in order to establish its credibility and reliability. To do so, you must ask a series of questions about the site before you consider using it for research purposes.
You can use the web page evaluation worksheet, developed for use in this project and a required methodology course for students in the Department of History at California State University, Long Beach, to evaluate history web sites for research projects and lesson plans. Some instructors have begun to require a completed web-evaluation form for each website consulted.
Web evaluation worksheets are available in two versions:
PDF for a university level web evaluation form
PDF for a 4th - 12 grade level web evaluation form.