Web Tools and Warnings

Searching the web has become such an integral part of contemporary culture that most students feel very confident about their ability to find information online.  However, doing research in an academic context is very different from doing personal research on a product, finding out when a new movie will be in town, or getting images of your favorite band.  Read the information below on the implications of various url suffixes and explore the information on analyzing web source provided by Cornell University.  Then begin searching using one of the search engines at the bottom of this page.

Understanding URL Suffixes
URLs, and especially their suffixes, reveal a great deal about a web site's affiliations.

• com = commercial (a business, corporation, or a private party home page)
• org = non-profit organization (home pages of an organization and documents/links associated with the organization's interests)
• gov = government (includes documents such as legislation and government reports)
• edu = educational (college and university home pages as well as documents written by professors and students)
• mil = military (includes information about various branches of the military)
• net = network (network administrator sites or some web sites otherwise not different from a .com)

It would be a gross exaggeration and generalization to suggest that .coms always contain profit-driven information or that .gov and .edu information is always reliable.  Read the information provided by Cornell University to get a better sense of how to read between the lines of all sources, whether print or electronic, so you do not give too much credence to the url.

Credibility and Web Sources
How to Analyze Information Sources

Some of the Best Search Engines
Although you can access excellent information using any search engine, some engines (aol and yahoo) have a higher number of .com hits and are more likely to place at the top of your hit list sites with books you can buy on your topic rather than directly taking you to solid information available online.  If you have not tried the engines listed below, give them a try. 
Google
Librarians' Internet Index
Internet Reference Resources