Resources for Legal Research : Evaluating Internet Resources

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 quote from it in a research paper.

Factors to look for in evaluating websites include

• Authority
• Objectivity
• Timeliness
• Currency
• Coverage
• Appearance

• 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

• Check for content on invisible web

• Infomine
• ipl2 Internet Public Library