Evaluating the Future: A Preliminary Study of the Process of How Undergraduate Students Evaluate Web Sources

In this article, Scholz‐Crane examines current practices among students in an entry‐level composition class. Students used in this study were divided into two groups. Each group was asked to read two separate Web documents. One group was asked to evaluate each site based on criteria supplied by Scholz‐Crane and then to comment on their overall conclusions about the validity of each site. The second group were asked to write essays detailing the criteria they would use to evaluate each Web site and then to draw conclusions about the validity of each site. The purpose of this preliminary study was to gain insight into how these students evaluate Web information and what implications this might have for teaching students to enhance their existing evaluation skills.