Internet Tutorial

• To learn some background information on the
Internet.
• To identify characteristics of a reliable website.
• To identify domain indicators as part of a standard url.
• To locate homepages for industry trade associations.

What is the Internet?
• The Internet was first developed as a governmental project for military use.
• The Internet has grown into a vast source of information which is international and widely variable in scope.
• Because of the fluidity and accessibility of the Internet, it is important to have some tools to identify the reliability of the information, which often changes from day to day.

• Web browsers are used to access the Internet.
• While there are others,
Microsoft Internet Explorer is the most commonly recognized Internet browser.

When I open my Internet Explorer, my default homepage is the UWF Homepage.

.com
Commercial site
.edu
Educational site
.gov
.mil
Government site
Military site
.net
.org
Network support
Organization site

• With so many different sources of information which can be found on the Internet, how do you determine whether the site you are viewing is reliable?
• There are a number of aspects of the site to examine for reliability. The domain may give you a first clue.

• Check the domain. Commercial and organizational sites may have an agenda or bias.
• Check for the last updated date. Is it recent?
• Can you contact the webmaster?
• If specific information is provided, is an author listed?

• Search engines:
– Google
– Yahoo!
– Alta Vista
– Lycos
• Metasearch engines
– Metacrawler
– Dogpile
– Hotbot
• Metasearch engines search multiple engines all at once.
To try some of these search engines, you can right click on the link and open in a new window.

• This would be the correct form for citing the article:
Food Marketing Institute. (2010, January 27). FMI statement on President
Obama’s State of the Union Address. Food Marketing Institute website.
Retrieved February 12, 2005 from http://www.fmi.org/news_releases/index.cfm?fuseaction=mediatext&id=
1105
• If the information for your article is different, check the APA Guide for more details.

Thank you for viewing this tutorial. I hope that it will help you locate web information available on your topic.
Make sure that you take the practice quiz to receive full participation points.
2010 © Donna Fluharty