Evaluating Websites

As a future high school English teacher, I anticipate that I will be assigning research papers pretty regularly. Part of assigning a research paper is making sure that the students are familiar with the research process. Since technology and web-based research have become the most popular method of research, it is so important that students be able to accurately judge the sources they are using. This Website Evaluation activity was a thorough checklist for finding quality, reliable sources. I would even consider giving a form of this evaluation to my students at the beginning of an assigned research project. Most of the "standards" were review, and I think a lot of students know to look for those standards, at least by their sophomore years. However, there were a few that I had not considered. One of those was site accessibility. Also, I was not aware that not every site is compatible with every browser. This would be an important reminder to give students if they plan on doing some of the research at home.