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Web-Grown -vs- Web-Delivered

Some content available on the world wide web was created for the web. Other content is simply delivered through it. For example, many of the databases you use to find articles (such as PsycINFO) are delivered through your library's webpage. This information is available to students/faculty at your college because the library pays for access to it. Since the library is selective in what it buys, you can be more confident about the authority of those online sources.

In general, web-grown information can vary greatly in its reliability. At first it can be difficult to distinguish between web-grown and web-delivered content, but it is helpful to identify them in order to help you make decisions about the reliability of your sources.

 

Web-Grown

Web- Delivered

Examples
  • personal home pages
  • e-zines like EXAMPLE
  • search engines like Yahoo
  • some email systems
  • full text journals
  • databases like PsycInfo or Medline
Characteristics
  • control of content not well-regulated or updated regularly
  • free to the public
  • rarely selected, or evaluated by a subject-specialist
  • content from known, trustworthy source
  • paid subscriptions
  • selected by librarians/faculty for their value to research and education
APA Citation http://www.apastyle.org
/elecgeneral.html
Robert Todd Carroll. (Last updated 08/05/01). The Skeptics Dictionary: the Mozart Effect. Retrieved August 5, 2001. http://skepdic.com/mozart.html Thompson, William Forde; Schellenberg, E. Glenn; Husain, Gabriela. (May 2001). "Research Reports: Arousal, Mood and the Mozart Effect." Psychological Science 12:3 p. 248-251. http://journals.ohiolink.edu/pdflinks/01070610160221979.pdf

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