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Rel
361 Ways of Understanding Religion
Final Project Web Research Assessment Guidelines
When you
begin your paper, you should first begin with the resource page I created
for this class (http://www.linkline.com/personal/rwreed/wur/wurres.htm).
You can get there easily from www.trickster.org/basilica.
There are links there to help you get started. After that, if you want
further information, use www.google.com
and/or www.searchedu.com. If you
have trouble finding sites, look at this page http://www.linkline.com/personal/rwreed/search.html
or Sink or Swim (http://www.ouc.bc.ca./libr/connect96/search.htm)
for suggestions on how to narrow or broaden your search.
In order
to assess whether the sites you've found will be useful, analyze them
using the following criteria.
Who
made the site?
Sometimes
a site says “This is Susie’s Salem Site” other times sites will have
names like books, such as Exploring Salem Village. If you are uncertain
who made it, look at the URL. There is a big difference between http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/salem/witchcraft/
and http://www.illusions.com/halloween/.
In the case of the first URL the initial part of the address
ends in EDU. This indicates that is it housed at a college or university.
This doesn’t guarantee the information is accurate, but it is a good
indication of where to start. The second URL is “hosted” by a COM address
and is probably a hobby site or a personal site. Those sites can have
good information but in both cases you must read carefully to
see what the purpose of the site is and who created it.
Why
did they create this site (what is its purpose)?
Sometimes
this is explicit and other times you have to deduce why from the material
that is presented.
Who
is the imagined audience?
What kind
of site it is can be directly related to the audience. If the page is
about Modern Pagan Wicca practices you can bet that it’s either directed
at wiccans or is a kind of apologia (justification, reasoning) for the
practices of wiccans. What you’re seeking for your projects is a research
oriented site with the best information for your purpose. In
this case, best = most scholarly. Again, sometimes this is very
obvious and others…. You have to guess. But if you can’t see yourself
as one of those people, then maybe you need a different site.
How
is the information put together?
Is it an
anecdotal site “This is my trip to Salem Village” or a project site
“This is my paper about Ann Hibbens,” or a professional site “This is
the Massachusetts State Historical Association Website for Salem Village”
etc. If the site is telling a story it is probably not as useful for
your purposes for a paper. You want a site that is making an argument,
trying to persuade you using reason, logic and footnotes or references
that a particular event or position is correct.
Does
the information have an agenda?
Does the
site intend to inflame your emotions or is it more “objective” in tone?
(“This site will prove that witches are real” or “this site will examine
possible theories for the existence of witchcraft,” or “this site will
prove witches are real and turn people into newts. I know because it
happened to me”).
This is really the test for what’s scholarly. Anecdotal sites can be
fun but are rarely sources of research quality information. Scholarly
pages also have an agenda, but it should be explicit (theories
of witchcraft) and should not be designed to anger you or express the
anger of the author.
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