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Yuma, Information Literacy Tutorial

Intro

Websites seem pretty straightforward, don't they? When you search Google, all of the results you get go to different websites, right? Actually, no – or maybe. It kind of depends on how you define 'website'.

Why are websites so confusing?

Part of the problem has to do with the word 'website' because it is regularly used in two different ways - as a location and as a type of source.

A 'website' can mean a location

As you know, all content on the internet has a specific location designated by an internet address called a URL (uniform resource locator). We commonly call this location a 'website.' For clarity, let's call it a website-location. So, any content on the internet that has its own internet address is presented to you from a website location. Got it?

What types of content are we talking about? All of the following and more:  

Image shows an abstract from a journal

Above you see an online journal article. (This is the HTML version, not the PDF version, but you could click the red button to download the PDF version.) This article is available on the internet from this website- location: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1470412920906259 

As you can see from the list above, the content available from website-locations is highly variable and includes traditional sources like newspaper articles, magazines, journal articles, and books.  

A 'website' can mean a type of source

We also use the word 'website' to refer to a particular type of source that's distinct from traditional sources like books, journal articles, etc. For clarity, let's call it a website-source. A website-source is a collection of related, hyperlinked pages devoted to a specific topic or purpose, and created and maintained by an individual, organization, educational institution, company, etc. Note the word 'maintained' in that definition. That word indicates that websites change and get updated – so they're not static, they're dynamic – and this is one of their unique qualities. Collectively, these qualities make this source unique and distinct from other types of traditional sources like books and journal articles.

Below you see the homepage of the website for the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA). This is a classic example of a website as a type of source, which we are calling a website-source. 

Image shows the FIFA website home page

Website sources are a relatively recent addition to the array of information sources we’ve discussed earlier in this lesson; this type of source only came into existence after the Internet was born. 

In contrast, while traditional sources like books and journal articles are presented from website locations, don't think of them as true websites. These sources still maintain their integrity as traditional sources even when they are delivered to you through the internet. In other words, a book is still a book, and a journal article is still a journal article, regardless of whether you are reading it in print or viewing it from a website location.

Let's revisit the list you saw at the beginning of this lesson and note in bold red lettering the sort of content that would typically be considered a website source. Notice that the first four sources on the list don't qualify, but the last three do:

Domain names help keep websites organized...sort of, but not really

All websites get assigned domain names like .com, .org, .edu, .gov, .int, etc., and these domain names show up in each website's address. This is true for website-sources as well as for all content presented on website-locations. Domain names help delineate internet content into broad categories, but not in a way that is particularly organized, consistent, or useful for promoting information literacy.

In fact, domain names give the false impression that all content presented on the internet is a website-source that represents an entity, like the FIFA, whose homepage you saw above. Here are some more examples showing how domain names capture and represent entities: 

The thing is, the internet consists of much more than just homepages for entities like companies, organizations, educational institutions, etc. – it also consists of a wide variety of services and functions like social networking sites, bookmarking sites, databases, etc. Unfortunately, domain names don't capture these differences in function.

There's .org sites that provides 'brochure-like" content highlighting organization's services, resources, memberships, etc. and there's other .org sites like HathiTrust that provides a database for searching and reading digitized books. The function of this website is completely different! Can you see how it might have made more sense to create a domain category for databases (such as .dbs) and give this site a .dbs domain instead of a .org domain? 

The .com domain is even more variable! It isn't just used for designating the website of a company - rather, it covers an enormous spectrum of content with different functions. For example, all the different types of content below are given a dot-com domain:

Imagine you landed on the website-location for a journal article, and it had a .jnl domain name instead of a .com domain. Wouldn't that be sensible and make it a whole lot easier for you to understand what you are viewing? It would also make it much easier to understand how to cite the content you are viewing. If you know you are looking at a journal article because it has a .jnl domain name, then you know to cite it as a journal article, instead of citing it as a website. Unfortunately, it would take a massive effort to organize, define, and assign these new and improved domain names, so we're probably stuck with things the way they are.  

In the absence of sensible domain names, it's really important for you to be able to recognize the type of source you are viewing on the internet so that you can cite it properly. 

The internet has pretty much EVERYTHING, right?

It's true that the internet now has over one billion websites and it delivers up online versions of the types of sources described in previous sections of this lesson. However, the internet doesn't provide access to ALL books, newspaper articles, magazine articles, and journal articles. In fact, coverage is pretty spotty. Why is that? 

  • Many sources are products you must buy. Even though they might have an online presence, they are not necessarily freely available and accessible to you when you search the internet.

  • Also, many sources are not even digitized, so they have NO internet presence.

  • And, many sources are not available to view on the internet because of copyright restrictions.  

"In 1994, there were fewer than three thousand websites online. By 2014, there were more than one billion sites. Most of them are searchable and will arrive before your eyes in mere seconds, regardless of their quality."

-from Tom Nichols' The Death of Expertise

But, can't you usually find ENOUGH decent information just by searching the internet? 

Maybe. Maybe not. Problems tend to arise around issues of quality and credibility, which you'll explore in the next lesson – but you already got a sense of this on the first page of this lesson. You learned that websites are so abundant and variable in their intended audience and purpose that it's hard to know, without actually exploring them, whether they'll fulfill your information need. Plus many of them are downright awful. Building a website is cheap, so the internet offers up a platform for pretty much anyone to present useless and silly information to the world. 

FYI, libraries specialize in providing access to high-quality information sources that the internet doesn't provide for free.

Libraries pay to make all sorts of published books and articles available to you that you would not be able to access otherwise. That's why you'll hear your instructors encourage you to "Use the library to find sources." In fact you might hear them say that over and over and over again.  Don't worry, you'll learn how to use Cline Library resources in Lesson 6.

Ok, so what did you get out of Lesson 2?

Fiirst, you should be able to state how different types of information sources serve different information needs and how this helps you find information more efficiently and effectively. 

Second, you should be able to discuss the purpose of journal articles and conference papers, and you should be able to recognize them when you come across them.

Next, you should now understand that internet searches retrieve results that represent different types of sources.

Then, you should know what clues to look for to identify what type of source you are looking at in it's print form or online.

Lastly, you should be able to list some of the disadvantages of relying on internet searching and websites for all of your information needs.