NSTeens
Digital Information Literacy
Consider this scenario: you're in front of a newsstand with hundreds of periodicals laid out in front of you. Close your eyes and grab the first magazine you touch. What do you have? It's more likely that you have a shady tabloid in your hand rather than a respected journal or newspaper. With so much information coming at you on a daily basis, you have to learn to sift through the trash to get to the truth. On the Internet, this couldn't be more true.
Let's say that you're writing a paper on the dangers of smoking and teens. The first thing you would do is to type in "dangers of smoking and teens" into a search engine, right? So you get nearly a million hits that match your search criteria, now what? Well, if you already know how to sift through some of these search results, then you already know a thing or two about digital information literacy.
What does it mean?
It means that you can find, understand, and evaluate the information you find on the Internet.
Why should you care?
Much of the information you see online does not go through an editor or "fact checker." Some web sites are even out there for one purpose and that is to deceive you. Since most teens use the Internet for research and help with homework, it's pretty important to know how to evaluate and interpret the information you see online to find information that is accurate. This is a huge part of digital information literacy.
How do you find reliable sources on the Internet?
Let's go back to our previous example of the dangers of smoking and teens. Out of nearly a million hits that match your search, how do you find the sources that will truly be useful to you when writing your paper?
Ever heard of dissecting a URL? This is the process of picking apart a URL, or web address, to find out whether the web site will be helpful to you or a complete dud.
Let's take one of the first URLs from the search engine and dissect it:
http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/tips4youth.htm
The "http://" is known as the SCHEME and will tell you how the information will get to you. The "www.cdc.gov" is the HOST and tells us who the information is coming from or who owns the site. In this case the web site belongs to the Centers for Disease Control. The ".gov" domain means this site is an official government site and restricted to U.S. government entities. The last part of the URL is known as the PATH and is made up of directories that house the file that you want to use for your research. The path will tell you what kind of information you are looking at within the web site.
This link from the CDC is an excellent place to begin your research on the topic of the dangers of teenage smoking because the file name shows relevance to your research topic and it's a government site.
How do you evaluate web sites?
First you must ask yourself the 5Ws: who, what, when, where, why.
- WHO is the author and organization behind the content?
- WHAT is the content and is it accurate or fully researched and supported?
- WHEN was the content written and is it out of date?
- WHERE is this information located on the web and is it a reliable domain*?
- WHY was this content written? Is the information biased and meant to persuade you?
So much of evaluating sources is knowing WHERE it comes from. There's .pro for lawyers and doctors and .aero for the air transport industry and .gov for the U.S. government. Information found on a .gov site will be your best bet for reliable information since this domain is completely restricted to entities that are part of the U.S. government. Here is a list of other domain names on the Internet.
| Domain | Purpose |
|---|---|
| .aero | reserved for aviation industry-related businesses |
| .biz | reserved for businesses |
| .com | intended for commercial sites |
| .coop | reserved for cooperative associations |
| .info | intended for informative web sites |
| .museum | reserved for museums and museum associations |
| .name | reserved for individuals |
| .net | intended for network-oriented entities |
| .org | intended for noncommercial organizations |
| .pro | reserved for practitioners of licensed professions |
| .gov | reserved exclusively for the United States Government |
| .edu | reserved for four-year accredited universities and colleges |
How can I tell fact from fiction?
Perhaps the most important rule in evaluating digital information is to triple check your facts against at least 3 other sources for consistency.
For more help check out "Check The Facts: Evaluating Internet Sources".
What about health information?
So you want to know more about your body? Maybe you're into eating healthier, or curious about the effects of illegal drugs. You look online only to find a lot of conflicting information. What site can you trust? It is about YOUR health after all. Anyone can create a web site about a miracle cure for a disease and anything else relating to health and medicine.
When you're looking for reliable health information on the Internet, ask yourself these questions:
- Is the information coming from a trustworthy source, such as the federal government, a well-known medical school or professional organization?
- Is the information backed up with credits and links to other sources, such as medical journals?
- Is the information outdated?
- Is the author or organization trying to sell you something?