First Step: 
Think About What You Want

Since no one has to approve Internet content before it is published, it is up to the searcher (i.e.,   YOU ), to evaluate what you find and determine whether it suits your needs.

There is NO single thing or list of attributes that is an absolute indicator of reliability. Instead, you have to JUDGE IT based on the presence or absence of different indicators and the ways you want to use the source.

First, do a pre-evaluation:

• What are you looking for? (facts, opinions, statistics, etc.)
  

• What is the purpose of the research? (to get new ideas, find support for a position, survey opinion, etc.)

Once you decide these, you can screen the sources by testing them against your research goal. 

Select sources that are likely to be reliable. A typical Web search will return 500, 1,000 or even more sites. With so many to choose from, why settle for unreliable material? So try to go for sites that provide as many of the following attributes as possible:

• The author's name

• His or her title or position

• His or her organizational affiliation

• The date the page was created or last updated

• Contact information (i.e., e-mail) for the author

• Some of the CARS indicators of information quality (more on this later)

You can check headers, footers and the actual Web page body to determine the author and source. And also remember to check out online biographical information and compare information from one source with what you find from other sites.