When you use a research or academic library, the books, journals and other resources have already been evaluated by scholars, publishers and librarians. Every resource you find has been evaluated in one way or another before you ever see it. When you are using the World Wide Web, none of this applies. There are no filters. Because anyone can write a Web page, documents of the widest range of quality, written by authors of the widest range of authority, are available on an even playing field .
Excellent resources reside along side the most dubious.
Let the reader beware. This document discusses the criteria by which scholars in most fields evaluate print information, and shows how the same criteria can be used to assess information found on the Internet. A Guide to Search Tools , which discusses a number of search engines in some depth, including advice on using keywords. Also good is the Berkeley Tutorial on Finding Information on the Internet . Milton s Web has written an excellent Guide to Evaluating Internet Information , which is readable and full of practical advice.