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Evaluating Online Information

How to determine if information found on the internet is credible.

Welcome!

Much of the information we access and use is found on the internet.  With so much information out there, it is challenging to try to decide what is valid and true.  This guide provides you with some strategies and skills to learn what to trust and what should not be trusted and why.  There may be a few cases where you are still not sure!  If that happens, then make sure you don't share the information with anyone or use it in your research until you know for sure.

If you have more questions about this, then please contact us!

Why is this so important?

Good news! Anyone can publish anything on the internet. 

Not so good news!  Anyone can publish anything on the internet.

The ability to publish on the internet can be great for access to information but not so great when the information is false or misleading.  We all need to make sure that we are responsible about the information we post, repost, like, and share.  If we plan to use any of the information to help ourselves, help others, or as the basis for some sort of scholarly output (paper, research, book), then we need to make sure that the information is trustworthy before we use it.