Infographic: What Makes a Credible Website Source?

Full description. Credible sources are a key component of any good essay or research paper. Before the internet, you could reliably pick and choose a book from a local library and know with a high level of certainty that it is credible. After all, who would take the time to publish a book or article with inaccurate or wrong information? But since the internet became mainstream, anyone with a keyboard and mouse has the ability to publish content online. That's why it's up to you to know how to carefully evaluate the credibility of online sources.

What's included. This brief infographic showcases some simple steps you can take to ensure that the website you are citing is a credible source. Just follow the analysis steps provided and you can be confident that you won't lose points (or even a letter grade) for using poor online sources.

1. Trust but verify: This slogan is not only useful for life, but online research as well. By default, (mostly) anything published in a library or an online journal database (like Sci-Hub) is going to be a good choice. But when you are looking at websites, the authorship and credibility is not always clear. Follow the steps below to see if the website is useful or a dud.
2. 1. Authorship (critical): The authorship of the website (and preferably the specific page) must be clearly defined. Look for citations or authorship notes at the beginning or end of the website page to find it.
3. 2. Timestamp (preferred): There should be a date of publication located where you found the authorship information. If not, it doesn't discount the source completely, but you should be wary.
4. 3. Citations and links (critical): Almost all credible online sources (like the posts on the Ultius blog or this infographic) will have proper attribution for the information they referenced. Think about how CNN or Forbes articles generally have links to the original source of the information. Even novel concepts and ideas like Einstein's relativity theory referenced the body of work from other scholars to set a foundation. Look for links under sections that reference "further reading" or "works cited."
5. 4. Bibliographic information (preferred): Most scholarly articles will provide you with a reference list of sources. These are usually found at the bottom of the article or in-text if they used a citation style like APA format. Most websites don't follow strict formatting styles, so you should look for a list of links or references at the bottom or the side of the page.
6. 6. Final considerations: Finally, it's a good idea to click around the site and see if it's designed well, attributed to a credible organization and/or useful for other information. Avoid personal blogs (in most cases) and ask a friend or professor if you are really unsure, but need the information. Alternatively, you can try and find the same information from another source that is credible.

If you follow the steps above, you can be confident that you are using appropriate sources for your research paper or dissertation writing project.