1. The wording of your search makes all the difference. Include relevant information. When I typed in “Brady Civil War battle photographs” in January 2007, the first site of the 9,500+ returned was the Selected Civil War Photographs Home Page at the Library of Congress’ American Memory project. The second wa a page at the same site for teaching with these images. The third was the National Archives Digital Classroom site on Mathew Brady and the Civil War. This is exactly the kind of sites I wanted. When I typed in “Brady photographs,” Google™ returned 105,000+ sites! The Library of Congress page was still first, but a site on Brady portraits at the Smithsonian was second. This is a wonderful site, but not what I was looking for. When I typed in “Brady,” I got almost three million sites. And I had to scroll to page four before finding the Smithsonian site and then, finally, the Library of Congress site, but not its home page. The effort of the extra keystrokes in your search request is definitely worth it.

2. Pay attention to URLs. Search engines list sites by how may visitors they attract. The most popular sites sometimes are also the best, as with the Brady search, but there is no guarantee. You may find yourself at “Dave’s Renaissance Days” site or “Sally’s I Dig Leonardo” page. If you do, you are doing something wrong. The URL tells you where a site is located. This is valuable, time-saving information. You can assume that anything you find at a site created for the Library of Congress, the National Archives, or the Smithsonian will have been carefully researched by knowledgeable staff. So too with sites hosted by major museums. Anything you find at an online exhibit by the Art Institute of Chicago or the Chicago Historical Museum or their equivalents is trustworthy. If you have never heard of a particular museum or historical society, look for a link on the home page leading to a description of its collections. URLs also tell you the type of institution hosting a site: .org stands for non-profit organization; .edu stands for educational institution. Many .edu pages are student efforts that you can use at your own risk. Others, however, are projects sponsored by the college or university. Here again the home page will tell the tale. These non-students sites are almost always reliable. Also reliable, albeit to a somewhat lesser degree, are pages created by teachers for the use of their own students. Commercial sites, those with .com urls, demand more caution. On September 8, 2004, I searched Google™ for “Martin Luther faith alone.” The first hit was a .com created by R. C. Sproul who, according to his web site, “is the founder and principal teacher of Ligonier Ministries, which provides Christians with materials on theology, history, Bible study, apologetics, and Christian ethics. He is also Visiting Professor of Theology and Apologetics at Knox Theological Seminary in Florida and holds positions at Reformed Theological Seminary and Westminster Theological Seminary.” The site advertises Sproul’s booklet defending Luther’s reading of Scripture and chastening those evangelicals, like the Rev. Billy Graham, who consort with Catholics. The Rev. Sproul plays by the rules. He makes it clear why he put this site together and where he stands on the issue. The visitor to his site can make an informed judgment. This is not always the case.

3. Read the “About Us”/”About this Project” page. Web authors have developed protocols over the years. Perhaps the most important is to identify yourself, list your credentials, name any sponsoring or funding sources, and explain your basic approach. These pages are the web equivalent to the acknowledgements page and preface in a book. You probably do not read either. You should. And you certainly should read the “about us” page. If you cannot find it, you should probably exit the site.

4. Cite the sites. This means including the URL and the date you visited the site. This may strike you as unnecessary since the date is often the day before an assignment is due. But I post your notes to the course web site, and visitors will read them well into the future. And, given the way sites disappear, they need the date.