Imagine this: you're standing the middle of Jurassic Park, surrounded by dinosaurs. How do you know which of them are harmless and which are planning to have you for lunch? Can you tell just by looking?

Of course not.

The same is true of information on the Internet and the World Wide Web. You are surrounded by sites. Some of them have information you can trust. But some are outdated, inaccurate, biased, or misleading. Can you tell which is which just by looking?

Not necessarily. A Web site that looks good may have bad information, and a Web site that looks bad may contain very valuable information.

When the Internet was new, scientists used it for e-mail and bulletin boards. All the sites on the Internet were black text on a gray or white background. They looked very plain, but they had the most up-to-date information available at the time.

Today, of course, sites are much more elaborate. The World Wide Web makes color, sound, animation, and other special effects possible. Anyone with a computer can create a sophisticated Web site in just a few minutes.

That causes a problem. How can we tell whether the site we're visiting was created by someone reliable and not by someone who is trying to mislead us? When we visit a Web site on dinosaurs, how can we tell whether it was written by a paleontologist like Dr. Grant and not by an 12-year-old like Timmy?

In this WebQuest, you will examine ways to judge the quality of a Web site. By the time you finish, you'll have some valuable skills in judging the quality of information not only on a Web site, but also in books, magazines, on the radio and on television. Click here, and let's begin!