Can I trust this?
Whilst 67 per cent of children aged 12 to 15 who use the internet at home agree that they trust most of what they find on the internet, 20 per cent disagree and 13 per cent are unsure - Ofcom report 2006
On the web its more difficult. Because anyone can register a domain name, there are many examples of companies registering well-known names or brands to buy your trust. For example, if you visit the web site www.martinlutherking.org, you might expect officially authorised information about Dr King. Its actually put up by Stormfront, a white supremacist organisation, to spread negative propaganda.
So, just as you wouldn't take advice from someone without knowing what makes them qualified to give you that advice, it's the same on the net. To look up who owns a website, use WhoIs. Your ISP might provide this service or you can find it at www.whois.net for international names, or www.nic.uk for .uk sites.
Who links to this site?
When you are surfing the net, you do it by following links from one site to another. Knowing who links to the site you are looking at is a good way of rating it and the quality of its content. Finding who links to a site is simple. Go to your search engine and type "link:" in the box, followed by the name of the website. Hit the search button and you get a list of all the sites that direct their visitors to the one you're investigating. Remember that when you put up a site, you can't control who links to you so a bad set of links can have an innocent explanation. It's up to you to use your judgement no number of internet shortcuts are going to replace common sense.
How do I know it is true?
It's easy to publish lies on the internet and make them look plausible. It's easy for liars to hide behind a carefully constructed website and of course it's easy to make a mistake when you publish on the web and accidentally mislead people.
When you are looking for information on the web, it is up to you to be sceptical of what you find. You can never be absolutely certain that what you are reading is the truth, but you can help yourself decide.
- use more than one source of information. Compare what they say. If they contradict each other at least one of them must be wrong
- don't confuse facts with opinions. If someone makes a claim look for the facts to back it up. They should give you those too
- how much work went into their research? A site maintained occasionally or
in someone's spare time may contain mistakes, be out of date or just copy
errors from another site
Why would they say that? A company with a financial interest in a subject or a political party or a pressure group might be making an argument to support its point of view while claiming that it has no bias. - not all facts are true. Every day there seems to be a new survey on this or that. Often two surveys contradict each other, so you must make a judgement on which one, if any, is more credible
- who do you trust? Think of the organisations you trust in the outside world and find them on the net
Plagiarism
Two words that shorten the time spent on homework for cheats: "cut" and "paste."
Finding a website, copying a chunk of text out of it and pasting it into your document as if you wrote it is tempting, but it's cheating. However, it's very common. A recent survey of students found that 25 per cent had done it at least once and all the evidence shows that figure is much higher in schools.
Today there are hundreds of websites created to provide standard essays to copy for GCSE courses. Doing coursework the hard way might seem like a waste of time for kids who just want to get it over with, but learning how to use the internet constructively could be one of the most important skills they will have to learn at school:
- it is fine to use internet sources, as long as you say which ones. Encourage your children to use the information and rewrite it in their own words. At the end, they should name the web pages they found that helped. This is called a webography
- how do you know the source material is accurate or good quality? Encourage your kids to read their source material carefully and look for errors or bias
- plagiarism is easy for teachers to spot if classmates are sharing the same information. In the end it will just lead to more work, especially if they have to do the work again. Dont forget: teachers have internet access too
- there are now websites that help teachers and examiners spot plagiarism, such as turnitin (www.turnitin.com) for a small fee students can use it too making sure that their work is truly original.
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