## Web search and evaluation practical

“It is up to the reader or viewer to negotiate truth,” Joyce Valenza writes, providing the basis of her position in her [article](https://blogs.slj.com/neverendingsearch/2016/11/26/truth-truthiness-triangulation-and-the-librarian-way-a-news-literacy-toolkit-for-a-post-truth-world/) for the School Library Journal. Despite one of the four principles in the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics being “seek truth and report it”, Valenza reminds us that a free press is not required to be a neutral or truthful press. Fake news, photoshopped images, and hoax sites are all inaccurate or falsified information meant to trick people. In the past few years, fake news has had a resurgence, even possibly affecting presidential elections. Citing a report, recent to the publishing of the article, from the Stanford Graduate School of Education, Valenza expresses concern about the lack of news literacy in students. At every level, the students failed in exercises where they had to use critical thinking skills to question sources and their reliability and truthfulness. With the way things are going, Valenza sees a “serious need” for librarians and educators to guide students through the flood of resources.

###### <h6 style="color:blue"> A similar exercise from our assignment required us to relate two claims on a Wikipedia page to Wikipedia’s verifiability policy:<span style="color:blue"> Claim A:  Claim B: Claim A has an inline citation to a reliable source, but Claim B does not. This second claim should be removed from the page unless a reliable source can be cited to verify it so that it complies with Wikipedia's policy. The first version of this Wikipedia page was created on August 1st, 2011.

In her article, Valenza talks about the sheer amount of information on the internet and the growing amount of fake news. While using critical thinking and news literacy skills can help us shift through this massive pile, I believe there are some techniques Valenza failed to mention. Instead of sifting through the whole pile, let's make the pile smaller.

###### <span style="color:blue"> For example, to find results of the exact phrase "Northeastern University" on English Wikipedia pages only, you can query: You'll find about 13,600 results, which is much less than a regular Google search.

Specifying what sites you want results from can help you skip the step of verifying every source you read. You can search for sites you already trust and have verified in the past.

In addition, you can filter out certain phrases. This is a good way to avoid many of the fake news or hoax sites Valenza describes by filtering out unrelated, clickbaity sources trying to take advantage of the search engine.

###### <span style="color:blue"> Here's an example of how you can search for something and exclude certain phrases:

You can also filter results from a certain time period and by Creative Commons license, so your information is relevant and free to use.

###### <span style="color:blue"> Date range example:Creative Commons license example:

For the web credibility portion of the assignment, I went on nbcnews.com and clicked on an advertisment meant to look like another story on the page. These kinds of ads usually target seniors, and I clicked on one with the title "24 Senior Discounts Social Security Won't Tell You About". Here's what the [website](https://read.the-pennisaver.com/huge-discount-list-for-sen-iors-fbvlm/index-TPSsendisc1july19a1.html?&cep=noagS2LDkZ3WQifFz_8fFPQV7hoz1O4DTo4K_SkVSafOM2Pl6oI_HwkXGnqD9Yj1kJbAIOMdKlBFCWLw6Yws-QBGywPAxCZXspD69rzFGqm9JnHdvjG31lOw7NFIZ_D2zFdIZSSQx7nOcQTUYFIA717HuRJx96chsKWCB75HQllHSyb3jfN4ELE0x6n6e2cmh_bRJZ0rV2ecpjGO9Pqxb6toNeLkSDGd4MhwdUa4QXmuYK4D5-2LUar73VpVPdnhyafPeE5A5CVdv2rMDLby1oardpTjpCqJlJB_DZqNZi5bzy_CwTWCTr4ty6olYjeB7FMxlaMkICsDn2uaRYj80pBeKtqHKcJUJZwy7bFvG6qtMMyMG8mEbkQ1OB8ufbjIj9UAoRXhFM3KMijvMn008RXeptngtdaGsjgGgL7WH6zeuxdeO2_Iw0i1l2iFbpqqrZiwcKMAsqoWFYHROozUfCwCc09BlUeBncbeIHXkjVIrwFddhLe9ukcb8nKBT3ofaV9hYr5DLQfsPvdTFFu6cDvU9z0VimBlhBFHXo62ZVjAbq9jO8mpx-y8sHy3MFAtt-QhkGMeqWtx0MEyQswsVkXQ1TqkjRnpHj8Laxp4lxOE8_eZZL-BZQWltsHThpjE-6snPu4CqEZ8hQo_B53HV6qZnWIfbkGwmLEBVfXbjAUCzyK7SFo1pIVsSfnaIuutKSDqRMJYjAXaEH29CaFwrfW_dCMxgeoW9f7YNXJtj-ZMFVyzx_lhgsNYKu7Hv7piL-UmRySVOSXSvQSHIeRIOPqU0LG71OWwXM0sslkGQS5ghLt2yibBGBpSB52tD48T72ntc1-tMgPyuA26qxyZKotFIdNxWPF8_SS75YnznP_z5K0Rw6DlR3VXMZrpHlLo3BIfqzbEhTcR-oLaje-r4slhU3aL6b8wl_h9_8-i2HYEn26usZSue4o7H3tANJpPQh6l9cndqFFVdNdXhiSZfx_2jC3SKy0x4Nd2NRLgpQjjQBHc6YKwoAYu-Q9NiW9WMWmiD-qlYRDNZxXH3g-0k9qlDvPMmhbOqP5Mez9GECZmsIaV2g_WsIDQWF25X0uD_fXRJYAjDXoimubqvQLlCtPfwzy4y6dtI-Oh_8_arfI337pN9oVnzC4qDZtDxKzyE_R4jJGztnx_lEXALDzy4MEzd4a5wIAMNJfcq2w-dgy_F_YZBFXkFtthzVVpldK4F8rZ4XeBFXAMOP3g2vJpCW0fSuDKRqUBQYFZyPM5t8zno0nNJmufV4P4ly78jK260ZB07uF9BInbm4rVowBwwRDk3p8-HWgHZHGDf_7OdjAdsO714Jn1g4juS_O5H3QM0oGS1PM3ZpUmlLPLdNguW_G7AZSXOtSWDHzLv2lUoW106q43lzEqRSDtotTeMrwvutQhdKdsUDbpKZIHMiw8qtwrsfP9L5o3VmV5tYZX0jNeNeom5baNh7F14lBpKI72VCcywwYMgpvrWIF5sFtEHlrAeZmMW0CVcPwc5gEKJidAQBlUGZvzdgsg39GgjPyNpzmnUxNyvdPUnD2Vj_AwL3NJbHUaKD-JoYGzHCqB_Ohdztl_iPuqb7Elt_kJEIsr&lptoken=16d995b93206929948af&s1=tab1sendisc1jul13a1&campaign_id=27381309&campaign_name=24sendisc+DK+Jul13a1+-+Top+Pubs+Last+30+maxcv&title=Seniors+Birthed+Before+1969+Now+Allowed+To+These+24+Bill+Deductions+Through+September+%28List+Here%29&cpc=%7Bcpc%7D&platform=Desktop&campaignitemid=3729471771&site=nbcnews&thumbnail=http%3A%2F%2Fcdn.taboola.com%2Flibtrc%2Fstatic%2Fthumbnails%2F8b3a94b4544c0a2d27bb50038c39b1ee.jpg&utm_source=taboola&utm_medium=referral&timestamp=2023-09-21+20%3A16%3A56&click_id=GiAH-3kPuvr4hIpAAZM1QeNyGWUjnZbhQFZb4EFv8Jgn0iDN_1Youreez9fN_qYZ&tblci=GiAH-3kPuvr4hIpAAZM1QeNyGWUjnZbhQFZb4EFv8Jgn0iDN_1Youreez9fN_qYZ#tblciGiAH-3kPuvr4hIpAAZM1QeNyGWUjnZbhQFZb4EFv8Jgn0iDN_1Youreez9fN_qYZ) I was brought to looked like:
The site already has a suspicious domain name: read.the-pennisaver.com. A legitimate company would probably have secured the rights to less suspiscious domain name, or even one that matches the name of the publication at the top of the page. Valenza and the Berkeley Library suggest looking into the author to judge whether or not they are biased or credible. This "article" has no author, another sign of questionable credibility. In fact, if you look closer at the page you'll notice that this is sponsered content. If this isn't enough to prove the unreliability of this site, it even tells you itself: