¶ … Doll's House First, find a website about the play and then evaluate the site by answering all the questions below. Note your findings so that you can refer to them when you are working on Part B.

http://ucblibrary3.berkeley.edu/Goldman/Writings/Drama/index.html

http://ucblibrary3.berkeley.edu/goldman/Writings/Drama/doll.html

Who is the author? (An expert in the field? A scholar? A journalist? A random member of the public? A student? A politician? A paid marketer or public relations spokesperson? Note that if you cannot quickly locate this information, you might want to move to another source).

The author of this essay on "A Doll's House" is Emma Goldman. Goldman was an intellectual and a political writer and agitator, associated with left-wing political causes, chiefly anarchism. She was eventually expelled from the United States for political reasons, and sent to the Soviet Union. Ultimately her criticisms of the Soviet state caused her to be exiled again -- she would eventually die in Canada in 1940. Goldman's essay was included in her 1914 book "The Social Significance of the Modern Drama," which intends to be an intellectual survey of modern drama starting with Ibsen.

Who is the advertiser or group paying for the website? (Since hosting a website is rarely free, your job as a savvy evaluator is to learn the identity of the site's sponsors, advertisers, and/or owners. This can tell you plenty about the nature of the website's purpose, including whether the site is scholarly and credible, informational only, or misleading. ).

This is a scholarly website maintained by the library of the University of California at Berkeley, under the heading of the Emma Goldman Papers Project. Founded in 1980 as a scholarly endeavor, the Emma Goldman Papers Project receives partial financial support from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, intermittentily from the National Endowment for...

The website has information about how anyone can donate to keep the project free and available to all online: this is what obviates the need for advertising.
Who is the audience? (For scholarly research, you should look for a site that is geared to scholars and/or university students. Informational websites are interesting, but not based upon sound research).

The audience is for those who are doing scholarly research on Emma Goldman, or research on any of the subjects that Emma Goldman discussed in her published and unpublished writings. Goldman maintained an intellectual interest in the arts, particularly when they corresponded to her political interests. Thus Goldman's interest in "A Doll's House" by Henrik Ibsen had to do with a larger interest in the political question of women's rights.

Is the information credible? (You should use sources that present material based upon solid reasoning and research rather than opinion only).

The website is credible insofar as it accurately presents the text of Emma Goldman's essay on "A Doll's House" within the larger context of her 1914 book "The Social Signficance of the Modern Drama," which includes four chapters devoted solely to Ibsen. Goldman's views on the play are credible insofar as she is an important intellectual and historical figure, and we are free to agree or disagree with her as we would with any critic.

Does the website offer links to additional information? (Solid websites recommend other credible sources and the information that credible websites offer can be verified by numerous scholarly publications).

The website is a treasure trove for anyone hoping to study the writings and thought of Emma Goldman. It is not specifically a resource for the study of Ibsen or "A Doll's House"-all of the links and additional information are about the critic and not the original work.

Part B: Use your findings…