Analyzing Credibility Percentages of Online Sources

During my internship with Smithsonian’s Consumer and Educational Product Licensing Group, I spent a large portion of my time fact-checking and revising errors that I found in textbooks produced by large publishing companies that Smithsonian was planning on licensing with their brand. Throughout my research, I found that a majority of the factually incorrect information that was in these textbooks came directly from a few top sites that were usually on the first page of my search. The top sites that I found to be credible, consistent, and factually correct took much more digging to find and usually were much further along in my search. This research project analyzes the reliability of certain online sources that I came across during my internship using criteria from various university research guides as well as my own research experience. Each source is ranked according to the criteria, and a breakdown of the credibility percentage for each source is provided to demonstrate the extent to which each factor contributed to its ranking.