LibGuides: Terrorism and the War on Terrorism: Find Websites

Internet Search Engines

Try some of the Internet Search Engines below:

Google - Advanced Search
Provides more control with many options for making your searches more precise and getting more useful results.
Google Scholar
Searches scholarly research and resources.

Evaluate

WHY? Rationale for Evaluating What You Find on the Web

The World Wide Web can be a great place to accomplish research on many topics. But putting documents or pages on the web is easy, cheap or free, unregulated, and unmonitored.

• Documents can easily be copied and falsified or copied with omissions and errors -- intentional or accidental.

• In the general World Wide Web there are no editors (unlike most print publications) to proofread and "send it back" or "reject it" until it meets the standards of a publishing house's reputation.

• Most pages found in general search engines for the web are self-published or published by businesses small and large with motives to get you to buy something or believe a point of view.

• Even within university and library web sites, there can be many pages that the institution does not try to oversee.

The web needs to be free like that! And you, if you want to use it for serious research, need to cultivate the habit of healthy skepticism, of questioning everything you find with critical thinking.Therein lies the rationale for evaluating carefully whatever you find on the Web.

The burden is on you - the reader - to establish the validity, authorship, timeliness, and integrity of what you find.

Internet Sites

Surfing the Web

The Internet can be a valuable source for supplementing the information you have gathered from books and periodicals.

However, it is VERY IMPORTANT that you EVALUATE THE INFORMATION you get from the Internet to determine if it is reliable and useful to your research.

Here are a few Internet sites to get you started with your assignment:

UN Action to Counter Terrorism
Country Report on Terrorism
FBI - Terrorism
"Working closely with a range of partners, the FBI uses a growing suite of investigative and intelligence capabilities to neutralize terrorist cells and operatives here in the U.S., to help dismantle extremist networks worldwide, and to cut off financing and other forms of support provided by terrorist sympathizers."
Bureau of Counterterrorism (CT)
The primary mission of the Bureau of Counterterrorism (CT) is to forge partnerships with non-state actors, multilateral organizations, and foreign governments to advance the counterterrorism objectives and national security of the United States.
Terrorism -- Council of Foreign Relations
The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher.
Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism
From the Library of Congress, this 186 page study, written in September 1999, focuses attention on the types of individuals and groups that are prone to terrorism in an effort to help improve U.S. counter-terrorist methods and policies.
The Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism (CPOST)
Maintains a searchable database on all suicide attacks from 1982 through June 2016. The database includes information about the location of attacks, the target type, the weapon used, and systematic information on the demographic and general biographical characteristics of suicide attackers.
CIA and the War on Terrorism
National Counterterrorism Center
NCTC’s Counterterrorism Calendar provides information on known terrorist groups, individual terrorists, and technical information on topics such as biological and chemical threats. The Calendar also marks dates that terrorists may believe are important if planning attacks to commemorate particular events.
Rand Corporation - Terrorism and Homeland Security
Homeland Security - Preventing Terrorism

Evaluating Internet Sites - Step by Step

Countless web pages are available on just about every topic, but how can you know what's worthwhile or credible?Evaluation of web pages and websites has become a necessary part of the research process, and a means to sharpen your own critical thinking skills. Some of the fundamental questions to consider during evaluation are:

AUTHORSHIP Note that "author" can mean a person or organization.	Who is the author of the website? What are the author's credentials? Is the author an authority on the subject? Is it another student? A professor? Your next door neighbor? Is the author an organization? What do you know (or what can you find out) about this organization? What is its purpose?
ACCURACY Information must be judged accurate and verifiable before you use it in your own research or assignments.	Is the site edited well? Are there spelling or grammatical errors? Is it written in a style that you would expect for the topic and audience? Don't accept the information at face value - you'll need to take time to consult other sources (including non-web sources) to verify accuracy fully Does the information on the site "fit" with other information that you have on the topic? Or are there discrepancies with other sources of information? Does the author provide a way to verify information on this site? Are footnotes, citations, or sources provided?
CURRENCY Look at both the date of publication and update, as well as the dates for any cited information.	Is the page or website being updated and maintained? When was the page written? Last updated or revised? How current is the information? Does this fit your needs? Note that website content written in May 2008 might contain information from 1975. Be aware that "Last updated" may mean any update on the page, including stylistic changes such as different colors or layout - not necessarily changes to content.
CONTENT Does the information on the website meet your research or information needs?	How detailed is the information - is it basic or advanced? Is the coverage of the topic complete? Does it leave out important information? Does it offer more than one perspective? Is the web page part of a longer document? Sometimes you will need to look at more than one page to get the complete picture. Is there a bibliography or links to other information on the topic? How were the links selected? Are the other sources mentioned relevant and credible? How does the content compare with other resources (books, journal articles, other web pages) on the same topic?
PURPOSE The purpose of the site should be clear. Be aware that some sites present opinion as fact in order to sell or persuade.	Does this site present fact or opinion? What is the purpose of the site? To inform? To sell? To persuade? Is the site objective, showing multiple sides of an issue? Bias is not necessarily reason to reject a source - but be sure that you can identify it. Who is the intended audience? Advanced researchers in a field? Elementary school students? Members of a particular organization or viewpoint? If there is advertising on the page, does this affect the content?
DESIGN Visual layout, choice of images and media files often have an impact on a website's professional credibility.	What kind of information - textual, visual, aural - does the page present, and does this add or detract from the page's usefulness or legibility? Do image or other media files slow down load time or navigation through the website? Do the different design components work, or are images, sound files, etc. unable to display, play, or run? Does the web page require specific add-on software in order to read, see, print, or listen to resources linked on the page? Is that add-on software readily available or must it be purchased?

Terrorism and the War on Terrorism: Find Websites

Internet Search Engines

Evaluate

Internet Sites

Evaluating Internet Sites - Step by Step

ACCURACY Information must be judged accurate and verifiable before you use it in your own research or assignments.

CURRENCY

CONTENT

PURPOSE

DESIGN

ACCURACY
Information must be judged accurate and verifiable before you use it in your own research or assignments.