The Internet is full of badly researched and sometimes straight-up wrong information. Who would’ve guessed? From reinterpretations of ancient sources being taken at face value by history enthusiasts (like that infamous pre-patriarchal Persephone post) to well-intentioned but ahistorical writing spreading misinformation among modern polytheists (like the myth of Hestia abdicating in favour of Dionysos), it’s often hard to know what is trustworthy information and what is not. Unfortunately, this makes things difficult when you, a non-academic, want to research a topic.
My biggest recommendation will always be to turn to a local university library (often there are even lectures and conferences you can attend without being a student) or to subscribe to a digital library like JStor. On the other hand, I completely understand that for various reasons, not everyone can access these resources. This is why I’m here to help.
In this post, I will outline the steps you should take to check whether an online source is trustworthy and up-to-date. I will mainly focus on researching ancient history, but bear in mind that you can use the same (or similar) steps to research many different topics.
The vetting process below may seem like a lot to take in, but it all boils down to five questions:
where does this come from?
who is the author?
what are their sources?
when did they write this?
who else wrote about this?
Step One: Where does this come from?
The first thing you need to do is check the website where the information comes from. Trustworthy signs to look for are a .edu or .org web address, a university logo, or the description of the website as a professional resource. Very, very often, websites with flashy or sparkly designs are made by amateurs and are not trustworthy. Any web page that doesn’t tell you who wrote it or why is not trustworthy.
When you’re looking at books and articles uploaded online (such as Google Books), make sure they were published professionally by a publishing house or peer-reviewed journal. Mainstream news articles range from accurate (BBC) to completely unreliable (Daily Mail), but since even the best of them can be sensationalistic, I recommend digging further.
Another very important thing to look out for is ideology. Is the website devoted to a certain issue, like proving the Ancient Greeks were black, the Sumerians were contacted by aliens, or the Hittites worshipped a pre-patriarchal Mother Goddess? Congratulations, this information is biased. Someof it may be correct, but you should check steps two to five very carefully before believing it.
Generally, you should look for websites that are focused on your topic, not websites that use your topic to prove a point.
Here are two examples to illustrate the difference:
Not trustworthy: this page about Persephone as an archetype. The website focuses on the Enneagram, not on Greek mythology, and the web design is amateurish. Even though the page mentions mythology, its purpose is to establish Persephone’s personality type, not to discuss her role as a deity in Ancient Greece.
Trustworthy: this page about Ancient Egyptian women and religion. The website looks far more professional, and by clicking on the logo in the top left, you will get to the organisation’s page, The Stoa Consortium. On the right, there is an “About” section which explains that the website was set up by a Professor of Classics and is funded by various universities, as well as by the US Department of Education.
However, determining whether or not a website is any good is not always so easy. Theoi.com, for example, is an independent resource with no academic support, but it’s very well put together and reliable. Meanwhile, Academia.edu is a platform for scholars, but less reputable people can easily slip through and post their “translations” of haiku in Linear A. Experts can have informal blogs, and non-experts can write professional-looking news articles. It’s hard to know which ones of them to trust.
