Evaluate websites

With any resource, remember to ask who created it, when they created it, and why they created it.

While you always need to question the information and consider its historical context, there are some specific questions to ask when you're evaluating websites.

Because anyone can post information on the web, every search will give you a range of reliable and unreliable results. To decide whether a website is reliable, ask yourself:

Who made the site? You should be able to contact them through an ‘About us' or ‘Contact' section.

What does the domain name tell you? Has the site been made by a reputable organisation?

What's the purpose of the site? Is it designed purely to give information, or is it trying to sell you something?

Is the site well designed and easy to use? Do all the links work? When was it last updated? Reliable sites are usually fully functional and regularly updated.

For example

There are a range of non-profit, government and media sites that provide reliable and free information on various topics. They often have common elements in their domain names.

As a general rule, in Australia look for:

gov.au = government site
edu.au = education site
org.au = public organisation, usually non-profit.

If you were looking at a picture of Melbourne in the 1800s, you'd notice there was no rubbish in the streets. This is because food wasn't packaged at the time.

For example

A teen magazine or tabloid newspaper has a very different audience to an academic journal or a reputable broadsheet newspaper. You would expect the approach to articles in these publications to be very different.

For example

Letters and diaries are great primary resources, but they usually present personal opinions rather than a balanced argument because the writer never thought they would be read by anyone else.

Mining

Melbourne city grid

Burke, Wills & Aboriginal guides

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