Introduction: Browsing Online
One of the most recent concerns for the modern world is the trustworthiness of the online information. The issue seems especially crucial when it comes to dealing with the information concerning health. Since the health of the patient depends on the result that his/her search on the Internet will crown with, certain explanations on how to deal with online surfing must be offered. As Beskeen et al. (2010) explain, “If you exercise safe browsing habits, make sensible choices, and let your browser protect you and your computer from malicious software, browsing the Internet can be a fun and rewarding experience.” Hence, it is essential to learn telling the difference between a safe and a perilous site.
Looking for the Trustworthy Sites: The Internet Evaluation Guide
The guide below can be of certain help to the people who are looking for the trustworthy sites and the reliable information on the Internet. Following the simple guidelines, one can avoid learning the information that is erroneous or contains certain mistakes. With the simple principles of safe Internet surfing, one can obtain the most valuable information on the required issues.
Considering the Scenario: Practice Time
In the given scenario, a woman whose son is diagnosed with autism is looking for appropriate information on the Internet. One of the most appropriate sites that one can offer the woman to visit is the NetWellness.uc.edu (2011), since it has the necessary elements mentioned in the guide that make it completely trustworthy. To contrast it to a perilous site that probably contains confusing information, one can take the AutismIsWrong.com site (2008). These are quite striking examples of what makes a reliable and a non-trustworthy site.
First of all, it is necessary to mark that the NetWellness site has the.edu domain name, which makes it more reliable than the other site with.com domain. It can be supposed that the information in the second site might contain the facts that are not supported by scientific theories and experiments. Indeed, AutismIsWrong.com deals with a personal experience and opinion.
In addition, in the AutismIsWrong.com it is complicated to locate the author and his/her address, which also makes the site quite suspicious. In contrast to AutismIsWrong.com, NetWellness.uc.edu contains the name of the organization and the contact information. The above-mentioned also allows to consider the latter more suspicious.
It must be admitted, though, that both sites do not have any pop-ups. However, neither of the sites has the date of the information publishing as well. However, choosing between the two, one should still pick the site with the.co.uk domain, since it follows four demands for credibility out of five, whereas the former follows only thee of them.
Conclusion: Internet Safety
It must be admitted that looking for credible information is quite complicated. Nevertheless, there are ways to tell the credible site from the bogus one. Choosing a trustworthy site, one will be armed on his/her “quest for knowledge” (Whitney et al., 2010, p. 29).
References
Beskeen, D. W. et al. (2010) Microsoft Office 2010. Thousand Oaks, CA: Cengage Learning.
Diffily, S. (2006). The website manager’s handbook. Raleigh, NC: Lulu.com.
Doyle, S. (2005). ICT framework solution year 8. Cheltenham, UK: Nelson Thornes.
Gilpin, A. A., & Patchet-Golubev, P. (2000). A guide to writing in the sciences. Toronto, CA: University of Toronto Press.
Wang, W. (2007). Integration and innovation orient to e-society: Seventh IFIP International Conference on e-business, e-services and e-society. Berlin, DE: Springer.
Whitney, E. et al. (2010). Understanding nutrition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Cengage Learning.