Surfing Hyperlinks

←Back

How to find credible information online

Introduction

The web has an abundance of helpful resources. Think about how often you search for something everyday. Maybe you want to see how to make a new recipe, find a new workout routine, learn a new skill, fix something in your home, read the news/weather, etc. If you can imagine it, there is probably some resource out there on the web that will be able to give you the information you’re looking for. Unfortunately, as with many areas of life, there are people who look to take advantage of the helpful nature of the web.

For example, SEO (search engine optimization) articles, which are essentially articles without any substance that try to game search engine algorithms like Google with keywords to become the first link for a search to get clicks and eyeballs on their page for ad revenue. This probably sounds confusing, but later when I show you an example you will realize how often you see articles like this online. Combine this with the recent boom in AI and now we have an abundance of AI generated SEO slop that is easy to produce quickly for any given topic. With a little bit of knowledge and time anyone can try and become a grifter online.

On top of slop, the web is rife with mis- and disinformation, especially with politically charged content. Unfortunately there are people, organizations, or even governments looking to persuade people to their points of view on topics that normally require a lot of thought and deliberation.

It is frustrating that this happens, but luckily there are tips everyone can use to critically think about a piece of information they are engaging with online (including social media posts), or anywhere in life. When I was in my master’s program, I came across an extremely helpful guide by the Georgetown University library. Here is their article.

https://library.georgetown.edu/tutorials/research-guides/evaluating-internet-content

I recommend taking a look at this article and saving the link somewhere before we move on. I am going to use this article as a guide to evaluate a couple of articles online to show how to interact with a piece of information on the web.

Using the Georgetown guide

The Evaluating Internet Resources article gives us questions to ask about specific topics for a piece of information online. These topics include the author, the purpose, objectivity, accuracy, reliability/credibility, currency, and links.

I can’t speak for everyone, but normally when I am searching for something online, I need to find information quickly. I don’t have time to conduct a formal investigation for every piece of information I read online. But as you start applying these tips while you browse, even just a couple of the topics to think about will be extremely beneficial. You do not need to be an internet detective for this. With time you will find what works best for you.

Let’s search the web for articles now to apply these tips to and see if the information should be trusted. Feel free to walk along with me as I do this.

Finding a bad article

First, open up your web browser. I recommend using Mozilla Firefox, but use whatever floats your boat. You can double click on the browser icon on your desktop to launch it.

Next, using your search engine, search for anything you would like to know or do. I searched for “how to write a book”

Now you can find a link that piques your interest. I clicked on the first link. I recommend avoiding the AI answers that search engines display. They often don’t contain the nuance required for most things that you search for. Unless it’s something obvious. If I forget the capital to New York and need to find it real quick, I imagine that answer will be fine for example. But I don’t think a quick snippet from an AI will teach me how to actually write a book.

Once the article loads, start using the tips from the Georgetown Library article I mentioned above and the topics they include. I am going to look at the author first.

I am going to ask some of the questions the article asks. “Is the name of the author on the page?”  No, the author has the site’s name. “Are the author’s credentials listed?” Once again, no. “Is there contact information?” Here I will have to scroll a bit and see.

After scrolling I have found multiple places to sign up for courses on the site, but I don’t see actual contact information from the site or the author. At this point, red flags are starting to appear. But let’s continue moving forward with the topics from Georgetown.

“Who is the intended audience?” The audience can be seen as new writers.

“What is the purpose?” (This wasn’t specifically stated but alluded to in bullet point two.) At first glance, this article looks like it is to inform or teach new writers how to write a book. But why were there so many nudges on screen to get me to sign up for their classes? Is this article just looking to get me to sign up for their classes? I will keep these thoughts in mind as I move on.

The next topic is Objectivity. “Is this information covered fact, opinion, or propaganda?” I don’t believe this article is propaganda. I don’t see it telling me what to think. But I also don’t think it is factual as well. I don’t see any citations to other resources confirming if the statements are true or not. That would be okay if we knew the author was qualified to be talking about it but, we don’t know who the author is.

We can use context clues on the site as well. Is this site for writers? I can scroll to the top here and see what the site also has.

Notice how the site isn’t specifically for new writers, but has broad categories. How do I know then if the site is the best place for new writers? Many of the questions I could ask, I can’t because we don’t have sources or an author. Like I mentioned earlier, you won’t be able to use every single topic in this guide every time, but even using a few can tell you what you need to know.

I don’t know who the author is, there aren’t any sources, there aren’t any links to additional resources outside of the site, and there are multiple places trying to get me to sign up for a class. For me personally, this is where I would hit the back button on the browser and find another link. I only had to use a quick couple questions from a few topics to notice this. But let’s give this site the benefit of the doubt and keep going.

Let’s look at the article itself.

This advice is good. Establishing a consistent writing place is great. But the additional context to the first point is common sense for the most part. This doesn’t tell me anything new. But let’s keep going. 

I scrolled down for some other tips. Outlining a story and doing research are great tips. But again both points don’t get expanded upon other than generic tips. Sure this isn’t completely useless and can give a decent starting point for a new writer. But how do I actually outline a story or do research? There isn’t any information on how to actually outline a story or do research. There aren’t any additional links to outside information as well. You would think if an author wrote this they would include things they find helpful.

This brings me back to the purpose of the article. (Notice how the tips from Georgetown aren’t always being used in order or how they are used multiple times. Be creative with this and do what works for you. These tips are helpful but not the law of the land.) Since the writing article isn’t teaching me anything new and not giving me any additional resources; but there are multiple places trying to get me to sign up for classes, it is safe to assume the purpose of this article is to sell me a class.

There isn’t anything inherently wrong with this. But it is annoying when I am trying to find information and have my time wasted. This is especially annoying since it was the first link to come up when I searched for “how to write a book” and I would hope my search engine, in this case DuckDuckGo, would provide me with the results I want.

Another thing I noticed is how buzzwordy the headers and tips are. It’s almost like that’s a method for search engine optimization. Notice again how this was the first article that came up as well.

Well my time has been wasted, but I hope this showcases how to use the Georgetown Library resource. But let’s find an article that actually teaches me how to write a book as a beginner! Press the back button on your browser to go back to the search page.

Finding a good article

The Georgetown guide mentions at the bottom that if you need critical information that is taking a while to find, ask a reference librarian. This is great advice that I feel is overlooked these days. Use your local library! Librarians are awesome people looking to help you. (Yes, I am throwing in pro-library propaganda into this article. Libraries are awesome.)

But this also leads me to another point. What if we refine our search? I could keep looking through the other links from my original search.

Or I could go back to my original search and try to refine it to get better results. Search engines aren’t perfect. They are not going to get you exactly what you are looking for every time you search.

Scroll back to your search and let’s refine it. Before doing so let’s check out some tips on how to do so. The website, GoogleGuide, has a nice table we can reference for this. Here is the picture, but make sure to check out their site!

Also here is a great article to refine search query results on Google like a librarian. I recommend checking this out as well!

Be creative here when refining your search. There isn’t one right way to do this. A very helpful tip I like to do is look for links to sites I know are reputable like universities, news organizations, reputable businesses, large websites, etc. You can also see if the website name in the URL is specific to the topic or a generic name like our first example. I can also put on a keyword for a source like this at the end of my search. For example when I want general user opinions, I like to add “reddit” to the end of the search to see what other people are saying.

So I could search “How to write a book for beginners reddit”

Here I could click on the first link to Reddit and see what people are saying. And they may provide great resources and tips! But I want to focus more on articles on the web. Also notice how the search results changed dramatically with just a few different words. Let’s try something else.

I am going to look at my original search again and use some of the above tips to look for a new site. I searched “how to write a book guide for beginners.” Note, you don’t have to search in full sentences with correct grammar, you want to use appropriate keywords.

Once again notice how the MasterClass article comes up first again. Let’s ignore this and scroll a bit.

The one result I want to examine actually popped up before. But do you see how different the results are? Sometimes all it takes is a little bit of tweaking. Sometimes taking inspiration from a bad article with a good title for something may work, which is pretty much what I did. I thought searching for a guide might produce better results.

We can also see that the website URLs all seem to be related to writing now. These don’t seem like generic SEO blogs looking to make a quick buck. Let’s click on one and explore it!

Now let’s use the steps from Georgetown again and evaluate the article. Already I can see an author is listed; however, I do not see any resources to learn more about the author. This is unfortunate but let’s keep looking. Just because one thing is missing does not mean the article itself is bad.

The purpose seems to be some form of informing or explaining. A quick scroll through the article shows that the author jumps right into explaining how to start writing with detailed tips and not generic common sense tips.

We can also see the author gives us exercises and many resources to trusted external information. This shows us the author is being objective and reliable. 

As I scroll through we can see how long the article is, which is a good sign. That likely means the author looks to inform instead of trying to farm clicks. (Compare this to our first article and see the length of content difference). We can also see that I am not being spammed to buy or sign up for anything. This is another good sign as it seems the purpose of the article is to inform instead of selling something. Sure the author is trying to make money, but first and foremost they are educating.

We can see that this article goes in much more depth and is what I wanted when I searched for “how to write a book.” This is a great starting resource for beginners. You may have noticed that the site also uses SEO tactics. Just because a site does so does not make it a bad site. It is only a problem when a site does it to farm clicks instead of actually providing the content you are looking for.

We can also see that we are being offered more writing content at the end of the post which supports the fact that this is a website dedicated to writing, which helps support the reliability of the site.

It’s a bummer we couldn’t learn more about the author but the rest of the article checks out! This is what I was looking for and having the Georgetown tips helped me critically analyze what I needed.

Final thoughts

I hope this wasn’t too overwhelming. It is a lot to take in, but I find just keeping a couple of the tips that were covered throughout this walk through tucked away in your mind will prove to be extremely useful as you continue browsing the web. Continue to experiment with your searches and see what works best for you. You can try different search engines as well. There are many options other than Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo. They all index the web differently. Maybe one will be to your liking better. The key takeaway is to not be afraid to find new information. You have the skills to evaluate content and there is great content out there just a few clicks away that you will find.

Thank you for reading this how-to guide! I hope it was helpful! If you have any thoughts, comments, criticisms, tips, or new posts you want to see, please let me know below or contact me directly at surfinghyperlinks@gmail.com. If you want to sign up for alerts about new posts, please subscribe to my mailing list here. If you are able to and want to, please consider supporting my work here, but please do not feel obligated! Thank you so much again! Keep on surfing the web!

Comments