Emergency Medical & Health Services

Evaluating Websites

Things to ask yourself when evaluating a website:

• Is the author of the website clearly identified? (an author could be an organization, such as the NAEMT) If the author is not clearly identified, the author could have something to hide.

• Is there an "About" link clearly describing the author's credentials and purpose for creating the website?

• What is the domain (.com; .org; .gov; .edu)? Generally, .com are commercial sites dedicated in some way to making money.  Since only governments and schools can have .gov and .edu domains, you know these are the official sites of the sponsoring institution, such as http://www.yale.edu versus http://www.yale.com. The .org domain is trickier.  Generally non-profit organizations use .org, such as The American Heart Association, but anyone can use the .org domain, so use care.

• Is the language professional and neutral? Or, is there emotional or biased language?

• Does the author use poor spelling and grammar? Are there exclamation points(!)?  None of these are present in reliable and authoritative websites.

You can search the web by domain to limit your results to information from the government, from education institutions, and non-profit organizations (although anyone can use a .org domain on their website, so scrutinize these sites a little more heavily).

What can you expect to find from such a search? For this topic, results from National Institutes of Health (NIH) are common (mostly research articles). Results also include items such as protocols/recommendations/position statements from health departments and EMS systems around the United States.

As with any source, check the dates. Typically choose material that has been published within the last 3-5 years. Always search to find out if there is an updated version of anything you find.

Using Google Advanced Search

Flex your research muscles - use Google Advanced Search to get better results when searching on the internet. Click the link below for a shortcut to Google Advanced Search:

Sample Topic: 

You are researching how stem cells from human embryos might help cure conditions such as Parkinson's Disease or cancer.

How can you use Google's Advanced Search to help you efficiently find websites that are MOST RELEVANT to this topic?

Advanced Search Tips

1. In the "this exact wording or phrase" box, type:  human embryonic stem cells
2. In the "But don't show pages that have any of these unwanted words" box, type: cancer OR parkinson's disease
3. In the "Search within a site or domain" box, type: .gov
4. Click Search!
5. The resulting search will automatically be: human embryonic stem cells" cancer OR "parkinson's disease" -cloning site:.gov

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