Research Guides: Free and Low Cost Resources for Legal Research: Evaluating Internet Resources

Fact Checking

ABA Legal Fact Check
ABA website, uses case and statutory law and other legal precedents to separate legal fact from fiction.
False, Misleading, Clickbait-y, and Satirical “News” Sources'
Compilation of fake news sources by Melissa Zimdars, assistant professor of communication & media, Merrimack College.
How to Spot Fake News
From Factcheck.org

Wikipedia

Wikipedia describes itself as "the free encyclopedia anyone can edit." Read Wikipedia's ever-growing list of disclaimers--"Wikipedia Makes No Guarantee of Validity." It's not a good idea to rely on the information you find here--you can use it to start your research, but never cite or quote from it in a research paper.

Evaluating Websites

Factors to look for in evaluating websites include

Authority
- Who is the author? Do they have a hidden agenda?
Objectivity
- Does the website purport to be objective? Advocacy group websites can be a valuable source of information, but you should question the information if they hide who they really are.
Timeliness
- What is the date of publication? When was it last updated?
Documentation
- Do they cite reliable sources?
Privacy
- If you have to sign up for a free account, what do they do with your information?

UC Berkeley Techniques for Evaluating Web Pages
University of California Berkeley library presents techniques to use and questions to ask when evaluating web pages.
Finding and Evaluating Online Resources
NIH guide to evaluating health and medical websites.
Getting It Right: Shortcuts for Busy Practitioners To Evaluate Web Content
Article from LLRX.com
Access to Legal Information
Guidelines are intended to help members of the general public assess law-related websites. They identify some of the issues to consider when deciding whether a website provides trustworthy and up-to-date information, suitable for a particular law-related information need.
Evaluating Information--Applying the CRAAP Test
The CRAAP Test is a list of questions to help you evaluate the information you find. Different criteria will be more or less important depending on your situation or need. From Meriam Library at California State Library at Chico.

Checklist from National Library of Medicine Tutorial
Use this checklist from the National Library of Medicine to evaluate any website. It includes a link to a tutorial on evaluating websites.

Invisible Web Resources

Google and Yahoo are estimated to cover only 3% to 34% of documents available on the Internet
Much Internet exists as the "Invisible Web", hidden from search engines for a number of reasons:
- Site requires registration
- Site is fee-based or licensed
- Site is behind a firewall or on an intranet
- Site is dynamically generated

Internet Archive and Other Web Archives

Bush White House (43)
CyberCemetery
Archive of government websites that have ceased operation (usually websites of defunct government agencies and commissions that have issued a final report). This collection features a variety of topics indicative of the broad nature of government information.
Google Cache Feature
Memory Hole 2
Site that saves important government documents that have been removed from government websites. Also digitizes documents not previously available.
Obama White House
Trump Whitehouse
TV News Search and Borrow
Contains over 1 million news programs collected since 2009 from national U.S. networks.The archive is updated with new broadcasts 24 hours after they are aired. Older materials are also being added.
Wayback Machine
Digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Search for old versions of websites.