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The authors examined adolescents’ detection of features that affect the quality of web information. In experiment 1, participants (12–16 years old) rated the goodness/usefulness of four web‐like documents for a simulated study assignment. Each document came with an issue that potentially undermined its quality. Two documents had source‐related issues (i.e., noncompetent author, outdated), and the other two documents had content‐related issues (i.e., topic mismatch, poor readability). Most students failed to notice the issues, including topic mismatch. The participants also produced inconsistent evaluations of topic match, readability, author competence, and currency. In experiment 2, students were prompted to assess each criterion separately. The participants distinguished poorer from better documents in relation to each criterion, except for author competence. The authors discuss these results in light of previous research on adolescents’ evaluation behavior, propose further avenues for reading research, and articulate recommendations for educational practice.

Many researchers in medical and life sciences commonly use the PubMed online search engine (http:// www.pubmed.gov) to access the MEDLINE bibliographic database. The researchers' strategies were investigated as a function of their knowledge of the content area. Sixteen life science researchers with no experience in neuroscience and 16 neuroscience researchers of matched professional experience performed five bibliographic search tasks about neuroscience topics. Objective measures and concomitant verbal protocols were used to assess behavior and performance. Whatever their knowledge of PubMed, neuroscientists could find adequate references within the allotted time period. Despite their lack of knowledge in neuroscience, life scientists could select adequate references with the same efficiency. However, differences were observed in the way neuroscientists and life scientists proceeded. For instance, life scientists took more time to read the task instructions and opened more abstracts while selecting their answers. These data suggest that regular use of online databases combined with graduate-level expertise in a broad scientific field like biology can compensate for the absence of knowledge in the specific domain in which references are sought. The large inter-individual variability in performance within both groups implies that beyond domain knowledge, individual cognitive abilities are the main determinants of bibliographic search performance.