Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for January 13, 2015; accessed at http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine.
Domain indicators in a web address or URL (Uniform Resource Locator) are a clue to the fundamental nature of a site and typically indicate the following:
| .com | a for-profit, commercial business |
| .org | an organization of some type; could be professional, educational, non-profit, or some type of advocacy group |
| .edu | a higher education institution; the inclusion of a tilde character (~) indicates a personal page (such as a student page, for example) |
| .gov | a U.S. government department or agency; usually federal, but now often used at the state or local level, also (example: City of Houston at http://www.houstontx.gov/) |
| .us | often used for a U.S. state government department or agency (example: Texas Legislature Online at http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/) |
| .ca | example of a country indicator (example: University of Toronto at http://www.utoronto.ca/ in Canada) |
| .net | an organization associated with providing network access |
| .mil | a U.S. military organization or department |
While the indicators above are most familiar, website creators may now use a generic Top Level Domain (gTLD), which can be almost anything at all. Examples include:
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) oversees the creation and management of domain names.
Consider questions related to purpose, process, authority, and elements of bias noted on the Home tab, and be particularly careful when you encounter the following "red flags" on a website:
For most assignments, your professors will tell you not to use or cite Wikipedia. Even though it's an inappropriate source for most academic work, Wikipedia can be a good place to start for:
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