- On the web, anyone can, with no supervision or review at all, put up a web page.
- On the Web, there is no systematic monitoring of much of what appears, except, of course, for articles published in the online forms of otherwise reputable scholarly journals and books. Biases, hidden agendas, distorted perspectives, commercial promotions, inaccuracies, and so on are not monitored.
- There is no standard format for web sites and documents. Web pages exhibit fewer clues regarding their origins and authoritativeness than print sources. Important information, such as dates, author(s), and references are not always easy to locate.
While a reader can easily note this information in a book or periodical article, the web user must often search through several pages, if the information is provided at all.
- Internet sources are not stable.
Web pages can be changed easily. And once changed, the original is gone forever unless a specific effort is made to preserve it. In fact, many Web pages are intentionally designed to change as necessary, and with automatic changes as with manual changes, the original disappears.
See AlsoStevenson University - Web resources use hypertext links and need not be organized in any linear fashion. One can easily be led astray and distracted from the topic at hand. But, of course, one can also be led to additional information of value.
- The changing nature of the web and web pages create major problems with the stability of information and with links between different units of information. Dead or broken and links on the Web are common and others just disappear or are not updated.
For print sources, quality control is sought through critical evaluation during the publication process. However, on the web, anyone with access to the Internet can publish. Web pages are easy to create with little or no training.
There is no overriding organization or governing body ensuring the validity of web page content. There is a good deal of high-quality information on the web, but there is also much that is of questionable quality. Do not assume that information on the web is more current or accurate. Each web page needs to be examined critically.
It is the user's responsibility to evaluate information sources, in print and on the web, that they find during the research process before using it in a paper or presentation.
