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Find and Evaluate the Publisher

Before information is used or cited, it is important to find out who the publisher is--especially if an author cannot be found--and what makes them qualified to publish on the subject.

If an author for an online article or web page cannot be found, then it is imperative to find the publisher or organization responsible for hosting the Web site. The publisher can almost always be found.

from: https://21cif.com/rkitp/course/twohourworkshop/publisherfind.html

Techniques to locate the publisher

 

Here are examples of pages where the publisher is not clearly named:

• Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Elect Susie Flynn

Use these techniques to locate publishers:

If looking on the page doesn't reveal a publisher's name, look on the Web site. Try truncating the url to see if there are clues about who is responsible or links to a publisher on other pages--remove the end of the address back to a meaningful break ( / ) or the root of the site (e.g., 21cif.imsa.edu/). The root of the site often reveals the publisher or provides good places to start browsing.

If the site provides links to 'about us' or 'contact us,' check there for publisher information.

If the url is an edu site and includes a tilde ( ~ ), the name immediately following usually leads to the Web page owner (same as publisher).

Use allwhois.net/ or a similar type of domain look-up site (e.g. nswhois.domainregistry) to search for the owner of the Web site. This is often the author as well as the publisher. The author should also be considered the publisher in most Web 2.0 applications (Blogs, Twitter, Digg, etc.)

Evaluation

Search for information using the publisher's or copyright owner's name in Google or a similar search engine. Be nosy -- look for facts about the publisher and check those out to see if they hold up.

Evaluate one or more of these publishers:

Elect Susie Flynn

The Shrine to Cary Grant

Second generation

Look at the history of the publisher, other works published, reputation and objectivity. What do the findings indicate about the credibility of their work?