We welcomed Mrs. Albright’s Speech and Debate class to the Academy Library today.

We started with a look at search engines, with Google being the most popular. We determined that Google ranks search results based on how many other sites link to individual websites, not necessarily by how useful or reliable the sites are.

We also explored some other search options on the CA Library webpage. Sweet Search is a nice option for finding websites that have been evaluated by research experts. The Custom Search Page at the CA Library blog helps focus on specific types of websites, hand-selected by me.

EasyBib and BibMe (both free!) are resources to keep in mind when it’s time for producing bibliographic citations. The bibliographic robots don’t always get it right, however, so we should check the suggested citation against the Research Manual Style Guide to make sure it’s accurate, and make changes as necessary.

During our next session, we’ll assess some websites based on relevancy, accuracy and authority using the Website Evaluation form.