A Patients Guide Through www.: Surfing Through the Internet

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Introduction: Browsing Online

One of the most recent concerns for the modern world is the trustworthiness of the online information. The issue seems especially crucial when it comes to dealing with the information concerning health. Since the health of the patient depends on the result that his/her search on the Internet will crown with, certain explanations on how to deal with online surfing must be offered. As Beskeen et al. (2010) explain, If you exercise safe browsing habits, make sensible choices, and let your browser protect you and your computer from malicious software, browsing the Internet can be a fun and rewarding experience. Hence, it is essential to learn telling the difference between a safe and a perilous site.

Looking for the Trustworthy Sites: The Internet Evaluation Guide

The guide below can be of certain help to the people who are looking for the trustworthy sites and the reliable information on the Internet. Following the simple guidelines, one can avoid learning the information that is erroneous or contains certain mistakes. With the simple principles of safe Internet surfing, one can obtain the most valuable information on the required issues.

Internet Evaluation Guide
Criteria Trustworthy Site Unreliable Site
Site Creator In the reliable site, the author is clearly identified and his credentials are given clearly. Moreover, it is desirable that the author should be identified with an organization (Gilpin & Patchet-Golubev, 2000, p. 34) In the unreliable site, it is hard or even impossible to identify the author.
URL Address According to Doyle (2005), a reliable site contains the following domain names:.gov,.edu, or.co.uk (p. 134). The sites that end in any other domain than the ones mentioned above are considered bogus (Doyle, 2005, p. 134).
Contact Information As Diffily (2006) emphasizes, The vast bulk of website feedback usually arrives by email (p. 53). Hence, for a reliable website, the contact information must be offered. In an unreliable website, it is impossible to find the ways to contact the author.
Content The content of the website must be clear and relevant. Whenever the site uses pop-ups or tries to advertize the irrelevant goods, one can claim this is a perilous site (Wang, 2007, p. 312)
Date of the Article In a reliable website, the content is regularly updated and the links are working. As Diffily (2006) explained, this makes a part of website maintenance (p. 10). Whenever the sources are out of date, or the links do not work properly, the site is untrustworthy.

Considering the Scenario: Practice Time

In the given scenario, a woman whose son is diagnosed with autism is looking for appropriate information on the Internet. One of the most appropriate sites that one can offer the woman to visit is the NetWellness.uc.edu (2011), since it has the necessary elements mentioned in the guide that make it completely trustworthy. To contrast it to a perilous site that probably contains confusing information, one can take the AutismIsWrong.com site (2008). These are quite striking examples of what makes a reliable and a non-trustworthy site.

First of all, it is necessary to mark that the NetWellness site has the.edu domain name, which makes it more reliable than the other site with.com domain. It can be supposed that the information in the second site might contain the facts that are not supported by scientific theories and experiments. Indeed, AutismIsWrong.com deals with a personal experience and opinion.

In addition, in the AutismIsWrong.com it is complicated to locate the author and his/her address, which also makes the site quite suspicious. In contrast to AutismIsWrong.com, NetWellness.uc.edu contains the name of the organization and the contact information. The above-mentioned also allows to consider the latter more suspicious.

It must be admitted, though, that both sites do not have any pop-ups. However, neither of the sites has the date of the information publishing as well. However, choosing between the two, one should still pick the site with the.co.uk domain, since it follows four demands for credibility out of five, whereas the former follows only thee of them.

Conclusion: Internet Safety

It must be admitted that looking for credible information is quite complicated. Nevertheless, there are ways to tell the credible site from the bogus one. Choosing a trustworthy site, one will be armed on his/her quest for knowledge (Whitney et al., 2010, p. 29).

References

Beskeen, D. W. et al. (2010) Microsoft Office 2010. Thousand Oaks, CA: Cengage Learning.

Diffily, S. (2006). The website managers handbook. Raleigh, NC: Lulu.com.

Doyle, S. (2005). ICT framework solution year 8. Cheltenham, UK: Nelson Thornes.

Gilpin, A. A., & Patchet-Golubev, P. (2000). A guide to writing in the sciences. Toronto, CA: University of Toronto Press.

Wang, W. (2007). Integration and innovation orient to e-society: Seventh IFIP International Conference on e-business, e-services and e-society. Berlin, DE: Springer.

Whitney, E. et al. (2010). Understanding nutrition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Cengage Learning.

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