Friday 3 April 2009

Reflective Blogging: EVALUATING ONLINE SOURCES


Hi guys!
How are you?Spring is finally coming!!!
Today I want to reflect with you about online researches. We started this reflection in class and I think it was really useful, indeed I always search for information and articles in the Internet, for example for my final thesis and for personal curiosity, too. You know that in the Web we have to be critical with everything we read, so I chose some main criteria I can use to make judgements about online researches and I found the 4W:
  • who is the author (you can carry on a research on the publisher);
  • what is the domain (.edu, .org,...) and what style, content, accuracy and structure is used;
  • why it was published;
  • when it was published.
You can fin a more complete and exhaustive list here... thanks Sarah ;-) Or if you have time, you can find longer descriptions in these Website: University of Essex, Purdue's Online Working Lab, San Diego Sate University. However, I think that you can easily get lost in these long and wide descriptions too full of suggestions.

And now I know that you'll be wondering..did she make any new technological discovery this week? Of course...YES! I have to admit that for my researches I used mainly Google and the online library catalogue, but I realized I used Google only in a 'superficial' way :-( But now I have my new discoveries in my mind and I can use:
  • Google blogs, where you can find all blogs, some could be less authoritative but you can find blog of experts, too;
  • Google books, the' you-tube' of books;
  • Google scholar, where you can find abstracts, academic texts, journal articles,...
I want to conclude this post by saying that we should be critical not only with the information found on the Internet but also with everything we read and with any source, from journals to authoritative critics. They are often not independent but linked to associations and groups that conveys their ideas in 'certain' direction. So...BE ALWAYS CRITICAL and remember the 4W ;-)

Elisabetta



4 comments:

  1. Hi Betta! I've found your blog doing some google search about italians studying english, i think it's really useful! Thank you!
    P.s. I love the graphics!;)
    Fede

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  2. Thanks Fede!I'm really happy that you think my blog is useful for you, too. Visit me again if you want to find new tips ;-)
    Bye

    Betta

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  3. Hi Betta!
    I've just read your post!As I said to Anna,you explained what we did in class last week very clearly,too.I also think that you wrote a good conclusion to your message:I perfectly agree with it.I'm convinced that we should be much more critical not only towards online sources, but also (and maybe above all,given that we always trust what some people,such as professors,say to us)towards everything that people write or state.
    That's all!
    See you soon,
    Michela

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  4. Hi Betta!
    Spring has definitely come I hope!
    I think that your post is written in a clear and logical way.
    I agree with your reflections, especially because I used Google only in a superficial way too and now I feel more confident while searching information on the web. I can see that we all find this critical research useful for our future thesis, so I wish you a good work and see you in class.
    Bye bye!
    Anny
    ps. Nice Picture:-)

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