If I were to do a paper about cyberspace regarding what it is defined as and how it relates to our culture, I would try to find sources that were either written by somebody currently at an educational institution or by somebody that has had experience in the tech world and has studied the relationship in the past. When I find a source I first look to see how professionally looking the website is and whether it contains enough information the page to be considered useful. Some sites have only a paragraph of information and they don’t give much detail to what they say. These pages are good to get more background information about the topic you’re researching, but they aren’t the best sources since they don’t have much. I also look at the author’s name and if there’s any additional information given about them. The more I know about them and their history, the more credit I can give to their writing. If the article isn’t tagged by an author, I usually take a quick glance around the rest of the website to see how the other articles are presented and what they cover. This gives me a sense of what the site covers and what its expertise on the subject might be. I don’t always evaluate the actual source’s credibility unless it something doesn’t seem right. If the author has a title next to their name, I’ll assume they know what they’re talking about and just continue on.
Of the three sources that I found for my cyberspace paper, two were written by people at universities and the other is just a freelancer. The two sources written by the assumed professors were considered to be good sources primarily just from their names. I looked both articles over first before choosing them, although, being who wrote them and that they’re from a college website helped quite a bit in my decision making. The piece by the “unknown” author I questioned a little bit, since it had an animated gif at the top of the page, but the content that was written on the page was relatively good, so I ignored that the picture was there, even though it was really annoying. All three of my sources used cites throughout their articles and listed their sources at the bottom of the page. Using citations is also another key factor when considering sources and it adds value to what information is presented. It shows that the author really took a lot of time to write the piece and that they wanted others to look at it in a professional way. Most of the information in my sources is pretty believable because for the most part it’s all based on reality and how our culture has adapted to cyberspace. If I was the professor and a student of mine used these sources, I would consider them to have decent researching skills since they obviously took some time to find them. They didn’t just pick the first result off the search page, but actually reviewed a number of pages before choosing the ones they did.
My sources are:
Carl Dolman, Dr. Everett. “What is Cyberspace?.” Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base: Home Page. 10 Feb. 2009.
<http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/aunews/archive/0203/Articles/WhatisCyberspace.html>.
Jones, Mike. “gyComputer Teolo, Cyberspace & Culturechn.” GarfNet. 10 Feb. 2009.
<http://www.garfnet.org.uk/new_mill/autumn97/sa.htm>.
Jordan, Tim. “Cyberpower: The Culture and Politics of Cyberspace.” Internet Society. 10 Feb. 2009.
<http://www.isoc.org/inet99/proceedings/3i/3i_1.htm>.
February 13, 2009 at 12:05 am
Its interesting how much information is available on certain topics by just using the internet.. I find the best way to research is to find a good search engine and go from there. I have also been introduced to other sources such as journals and library databases. I find that some of the journal sources have the most up to date, current, intriguing, and accurate information available. I would caution you on obtaining a great number of sources from universities or educational institutions, I have found some sources are from students who have submitted their work as “assignments” or research papers and I don’t think all the material is the best available.
February 13, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Your perspective on research is interesting. I have not thought about choosing an article based on the “professional” website criteria or a from another author. I do think you make a point. If the website is “substantial” enough the writer should be fairly credible. I seem to be a bit more demanding in my hunt for credibility criteria. I end up searching through the library and scholarly articles or journals. I guess I am not as “trusting” that have lots of documented research (at least for a research paper). I may end up citing an online article if it seems well thought out and backed up with some research or relevant data.