The Ad Fontes Media Bias chart helps you determine the reliability of your source. It rates sources on Bias as well as News Value and Reliability. If you cannot find your source here, you need to take other steps to ensure it's a reliable, trustworthy source. Click on the picture to go to the site.
A link or url tells you quite a bit about where the information on the page comes from and who the intended audience is. The last three letters of a url (uniform resource locator) or link will tell you a great deal about who owns a website, who writes the content and what their purpose is.
Top-level domain |
Abbreviation for: |
Who uses it | Url of example website |
.com |
commercial | commercial entities | https://www.amazon.com/ |
.edu |
education | universities and colleges | https://www.berkeley.edu/ |
.gov |
government | U.S. government | https://www.usgs.gov/ |
.net |
network | network infrastructure | https://www.slideshare.net/ |
.org |
organization | nonprofit organizations | https://www.sierraclub.org/ |
.mil |
military | U.S. military | https://www.marines.mil/ |
“Good” sources include those that provide complete, current, factual information, and/or credible arguments based on the information creator’s original research, expertise, and/or use of other reliable sources.
Whether a source is a good choice for you depends on your information needs and how you plan to use the source.
The SIFT* & PICK approach to evaluating sources helps you select quality sources by practicing:
Lateral Reading (SIFT): fact-checking by examining other sources and internet fact-checking tools; and
Vertical Reading (PICK): examining the source itself to decide whether it is the best choice for your needs.
*The SIFT method was created by Mike Caulfield under a CC BY 4.0 International License.
|
|
SIFT & PICK by Ellen Carey is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Last updated 4/11/23.
SIFT and PICK Fact Checking and Source Evaluation box from SBCC Luria Library