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The Internet is a great place, especially for students, because it has a vast number of information that can be used for academic purposes.
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Young people are very much updated when it comes to technology and prefers to do things with their gadgets and computers. Due to this, most companies and organizations have put up a website over the Internet so that they can reach out to everyone, anywhere in the world. However, putting up websites is not only for legitimate companies and organizations.
As a matter of fact, anyone can create a website about anything if they know how to read and click a mouse.
There are numerous websites over the Internet that are created by people who pose as someone who is knowledgeable about a certain topic but is completely the opposite when looked at closely. It is therefore important for students to learn how to evaluate Internet sources if they are valid and credible to be used for academic purposes. Robert Harris from the website Virtual Salt has come up with ways on how to evaluate Internet sources properly. He first advises researchers to determine what kind of information they are looking for because this way, it would be easier for them to screen the data that websites provide.
He then goes on to say that researchers should always look out for important information that websites should provide including the author, author’s title or position, author’s organizational affiliation, date of page creation or version, and author’s contact information (Harris, 2007).
These would tell a researcher if the data posted on the website is valid and accurate enough to be trusted and used. Another important thing that students need to remember is the CARS checklist, which stands for credibility, accuracy, reasonableness, and support (Harris, 2007).
While credibility seems very hard to check, Harris provides ways to know if a particular source is credible. First, the author of the website or of a certain work should have his or her credentials posted on the website. Contact information should also be included. This way, people who want to communicate with the author would not have much difficulty trying to locate the author. A website can also be credible by undergoing quality control. Errors, either grammatical or technical, should make a person suspicious of the website’ credibility.
Researchers should also make sure that the information on the website is accurate and up-to-date. Thus, it is very important for authors and webmasters to constantly update their websites and see if changes should be made. They should indicate when a particular site was updated and created so that researchers would know if the whole website is still being monitored by the authors. All websites that tries to provide information to the public should never be biased. Content should be written with fairness and moderateness, according to Harris.
He indicates that if there is some hint of one-sidedness, researchers should think twice whether they should trust the website or not. Finally, information is always better if there are evidences that can support it. This is not to say that every website should have supporting material just for them to be considered “valid” in terms of evaluating them. However, there are some things that need support including statistical data or current events and certain things that people say should be documented especially if they are known people.
Many students are not aware that there are websites and other electronic types of information that should not be used for academic works. Some professors do not even allow their students to lift material from the Internet because of the damage it brings to their works. Still, it is hard for them to restrict students from Internet usage and this is why students and other researchers should learn how to evaluate Internet sources properly.
Reference
Harris, R. (2007, June 15). Evaluating Internet Research Sources. Retrieved September 15, 2008, from http://www. virtualsalt. com/evalu8it. htm
Verbal communication is communicating a message verbally to whoever is receiving the message. An advantage of verbal communication is the opportunity for immediate feedback to make sure the message was understood. Another advantage is the opportunity to utilize nonverbal cues (tone, body language, inflection). These can apply to Barclays because it’s important for Barclays to receive immediate feedback which they can go on and improve on the Business. Also, Barclays will understand the message that is being given verbally even more clear because they’ll understand the body language of the person that is giving the message. A disadvantage of verbal communication is that the communication or message that was put across is not recorded (unless a video camera is used), this means that if there are any types of miscommunication such as an employee getting rude to a customer, there’s a high possibility that it won’t be recalled again.
Another disadvantage of verbal communication is that it is harder to communicate around the world. These apply to Barclays because Barclays has to make sure that there verbal communication towards customers or employees are made clear meaning that they would have to outcome the disadvantage. Also, Barclays has many customers/employees around the world, this means that this is a disadvantage to them as it would be harder to communicate seeing as customers in other countries would be speaking a different language, meaning that Barclays would have to come up with a solution in order to ease verbal communication around the world. Written Communication
Written communication means communication by means of written symbols either printed or handwritten. Advantages of written communication are that it is more accurate (errors can be corrected or content approved). Another advantage is that a physical record of the communication is made. These can apply to Barclays because Barclays has to make sure that their communication is as clear as it gets for their terms & conditions pages, and written communication makes this easy for them as there is a high possibility that they won’t make mistakes. Another way these benefit Barclays is that when there is written communication made, there is a physical record of the communication meaning that there won’t be any mistakes in communication between the employees and customers, also customers can refer back to these communications.
A disadvantage of written communication is that written communication takes more time and is more expensive to prepare because of printing letters about outstanding loan payments which leads to higher costs because of the printing and stamps to send these letters. Also, another disadvantage is that there aren’t any types of immediate feedback. These can apply to Barclays because Barclays rely on time and don’t have much of it which means that they have to decrease the amount of written communication. Barclays mostly rely on feedback, with written communication there isn’t immediate feedback meaning that this would be a disadvantage for Barclays.
Multi-media/ On-screen Information
Multi-media/ On-screen Information is media on new technologies such as text messaging. This can apply to many companies in today’s society.
An advantage of Multi-media communication is that the information can be spread to a lot of people at one time. This applies to Barclays because they usually have many meetings, and in them meetings they can use a projector showing a presentation which allows all members in the meeting so see. Another advantage of Multi-media communication is that it’s cheaper to use. This applies to companies like Barclays, instead of Barclays sending information via a paper based system which costs more; they can distribute information to their customers through multimedia communication. A disadvantage of multimedia communication is that many of the elderly in today’s society may not know how to work and understand the technologies used in today’s society.
This applies to Barclays because Barclays may use text messaging to their customers and some of their customers may be elderly people. Another disadvantage is that not all people in the world have access to multimedia communication. This applies to Barclays because Barclays now provide services of online banking, and text messaging to their customers, however not all of their customers may have access to multimedia communication meaning that Barclays would still have to use a paper based system for some of their customers which leads to more expenses seeing as it is expensive to maintain. Web-based Information
Web-based information shows many benefits of multimedia technology. With the fast broadband connections in today’s society, it is possible to stream sophisticated content to a computer anywhere in the world. A significant amount of interactive multimedia content is now delivered via the internet through web-sites such as www.barclays.co.uk. This is an advantage for many people and businesses as the information can be received and read wherever and whenever it is convenient for the person/business. This applies to Barclays because they can send information to their employees from anywhere which can be read by the employee at any given time. Another advantage of web-based information is that it is easier to distribute information through it. This applies to Barclays because if Barclays is to have a change into how the business operates and needs to inform their employees, they can easily distribute the information on the web to their employees.
A disadvantage of web-based information is that not everyone can access the web. This applies to Barclays because Barclay’s employees may need some information from Barclays on any new information or changes to Barclays, however some of employees may not have access to web based information meaning that Barclays will have to distribute information through paper based information. Another disadvantage of web-based information is that it can be led to misinterpretation. This applies to Barclays because if information is distributed to customers/employees, because it’s through a web based service, the customers or employees may not understand it properly. One other disadvantage is that if the systems of Barclays crashes, it could mean that customers would not be able to access the website. This leads to unpleasant customers whom may write complaints to Barclays. Internal Sources of Information
Internal sources of information are those which can give valuable information regarding the organization from within. For example, a business like Barclays can give new employees an insight of information regarding how the business operates. An advantage of internal source is that the information is most likely to be accurate because the source of the information is from within the company its-self which is reliable. Another advantage of internal source of information is that it can be shared amongst other departments and created analysed by experts with in that type of field. For example, financial reports are created and analysed. Disadvantages of internal sources of information are that it can be costly to produce, for example many people are employed on a specific job to just collect and analyse data. This means that this could actually be cheaper for external companies to do it for them instead. External Sources of Information
External sources of information is secondary research, for example if a business like Barclays wanted to find out information about one of their competitors such as Santander, but Santander doesn’t want to pass any information out to Barclays, Barclays would then ask a different organisation to collect as much information about Santander. Pros of secondary research is that the information already exists meaning that this will save time. Another pro is that it is usually cheaper to get secondary research instead of primary research which will save company money. Cons of secondary research are that in some cases, it is usually expensive as well (scanner data). You may have less control over how the data was collected. With secondary research, there could also be biases in the data that you don’t know about. Also another con of this is that the answers may not exactly fit in your research questions. This applies to Barclays because if Barclays was to require information about their competitors, they’d refer back to a different organisation to find this information out.
Evaluating Internet Sources. (2017, Jan 01). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/evaluating-internet-sources-essay
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