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The reliability of web sites has been a concern of mine for many years now and I have made web evaluation a major focus for my teaching. In spite of all my reading and study of internet issues, today I discovered how easy it is to fall for e-rumors. I fell for one of them. Although I am embarrassed to have been taken in - the upside is that I now have a real life situation to share with my students. Here is what happened. I heard somewhere that there was a bill in congress to reinstate the military draft and this time both men and women would be included. My sceptical bone was tingling and I should have heeded it. Surely if this was the case, I would be hearing about such a bill in the news and in the presidential campaign speeches. Why had I not heard anything before? So - I jumped on the net and searched for information. A Google search produced a number of results. I scanned the url's and decided that a page on Congress.org looked promising and this is want I found" http://congress.org/congressorg/issues/alert/?alertid=6371971&content_dir=ua_congressorg I checked Thomas - a reputable source on congressional legislation for many years. I found that a bill had definitely been introduced: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:HR00163:@@@L&summ2=m& Now I was really concerned. After school I had a hair appointment. I shared the information with my hairdresser who has a son and daughter of draft age. I promised to send the info on to him. But - that sceptical bone was stillbugging me, so I decided to look into it a little further. I took a closer look at congress.org and found out that it appears to be a company that gathers public opinion for businesses. It just did not seem to be particulary authoratative as I looked around it. So - next I investigated the other claims, such as an increase in the Selective Service Department's budget, and an agreement with Cananda to prevent draft age people from crossing the border. The more I thought about it, the "fishier" it all seemed. So - I checked into those other "facts" and discovered that the whole page was based on an e-rumor. Yes - there IS a bill in congress to reinstate the draft. But it has been in committee since it was introduced. The other 2 "facts" about the selective service and the agreement with Cananda are completely false. I was convinced when I read the following page on Factcheck.org: http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=200 So - I have learned my lesson. I defintely should know better. I know that a .org is NO guarantee of reliable information. I DID fact check the existence of the bill - but I should have gone much further and checked the other allegations. It will be a very good example to share with my students. And it raises my concern again about how easy it is to fall into the trap of misinformation. Our jobs get more important every year. Jacquie "The Librarian, whose job is to heal ignorance, to keep life safe for poetry and to put knowledge smack dab in the middle of the American way." From The Philadelphia Inquirer, 9-20-03 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jacquie Henry, MLS Ruben A. Cirillo High School (GHS) Gananda Central School District 3195 Wiedrick Road Walworth, NY 14568 jhenry@gananda.org http://www.gananda.org/library/mshslibrary/indexgcl.htm -------------------------------------------------------------------- All LM_NET postings are protected by copyright law. To change your LM_NET status, e-mail to: listserv@listserv.syr.edu In the message write EITHER: 1) SIGNOFF LM_NET 2) SET LM_NET NOMAIL 3) SET LM_NET MAIL 4) SET LM_NET DIGEST * Allow for confirmation. LM_NET Help & Information: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/ Archive: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/archive/ EL-Announce with LM_NET Select: http://elann.biglist.com/el-announce/ LM_NET Supporters: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/ven.html --------------------------------------------------------------------