HE 1115 - Critical Reading and Thinking: Web Resources

There is a lot of great information available on the open web, users just have to be diligent about being sure they are looking at reputable and reliable information.  On this page are some resources to consider for your topic.

One of the keys to ensuring that you find reputable information through Google is to take advantage of the many search tricks available.  For example, if you know you want information made available by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, you can limit a Google search to the USDA's domain by typing in:

site:.usda.gov

This will ensure that all of your results come from USDA websites.

Test it out!  and if you're interested in other tricks to using Google effectively, click on the infographic below.

There are a lot of excellent resources available on the open web.  They can sometimes remain hidden though.  Google tends to tailor results towards the user.  This means that if you have a tendency to select popular content, Google will tend to make more popular content available to you.  To find excellent / high quality content, you may have to go directly to the organizational webpages that house that content.  Here are some groups to consider in your research.

• Government Agencies - Many government agencies employ some of the greatest experts in those fields.  If you're researching disease, make sure to look at content from the Center of Disease Control.  If you're researching employment practices, make sure to look at content from the Department of Labor and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  Many popular research topics will have a government agency with content related to that topic.
  • As a side note, please remember that not all government employees are legislators. Content from congress-folk is unapologetically biased and should be treated with extreme skepticism.  Most experts working in the various agencies on the other hand are exceptionally knowledgeable about their areas and are usually far more trustworthy.
• Multi-national Governing Organizations - Groups like the United Nations, the World Bank and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development work extensively in many areas of social and economic importance around the world.  They also publish extensively on these topics.  
• NGOs - According to the UN, NGOs are not for profit, voluntary groups that "address issues in support of the public good".  There are hundreds of NGOs, and their purpose, scope, and the quality of the information they publish vary greatly.  
• Organizations and Associations - Groups that coordinate the activities and events of different professions. Examples in healthcare include the "American Hospital Association" and the "American Cancer Society".  In some fields, Organizations and Associations will be very influential and will have a lot of information available.  In some fields, less so, but when the above options aren't getting you what you need, these groups are frequently good resources to try.

Start with some of these!  There are other types of groups -- some of which will be excellent -- but as you get more refined and localized, the groups become a bit more situational, their publishing and transparency practices become a bit less predictable and their quality can sometimes be less reliable.