Five Ws (and a H) K1066BI – Graphical DesignTeppo RäisänenTeppo.raisanen@oamk.fi

Five Ws

•In journalism the Five Ws is a concept in news style, research, and in police investigations that are regarded as basics in information-gathering▫Also known as

Five W’s and one H Six W’s

Five Ws

•It’s the formula of getting the ”full story”▫Or the minimum amount of information

needed for a full story

Five Ws

•The basic rule of Fiwe W’s is that for a report to be considered complete it must answer a checklist of six questions, each of which comprises an interrogative word

Five Ws

•Who is it about?•What happened?•Where did it take place?•When did it take place?•Why did it happen?•How did it happen?

Five Ws

•Each question should elicit a factual answer▫Facts necessary to include for a report to

be considered complete•None of the questions can be answered

with a simple ”yes” or ”no”

Five Ws

•This is also said to be ”news style” for newspaper reporting▫The Five W’s are types of facts that should

be contained in the ”lead” – the first two or three paragraphs of the story

▫After that a more expository writing is allowed

Five Ws in the web

•In the web we can use the same W’s to assess the credibility of information sources

Five Ws (and one H)

•Who?•What?•Where?•When?•Why?•How?

WHO is the source of information?• Has someone taken responsibility for the content of

this Web site?• Is information about the author or organization

clearly stated?• Are there any links to in-depth information about the

author or organization?• Can you contact the company or author through a

real world postal address or phone number?• Can you confirm that the company or author is a

credible, authoritative source of information?• Can you verify the authority of any of the site's

content that is attributed to other sources?

WHAT are you getting?• Is the information biased in any way?• Does the site rely on loaded language or broad, unsubstantiated

statements?• Is emotion used as a means of persuasion?• Does the site offer more than one viewpoint?• Are there links to other or alternative viewpoints?• Does the site's information seem thorough and well organized? • Does the site clearly state the topics that it intends to address?• Does it follow through on the information it has promised?• Does the information seem complete and consistent?• Is the information well written and easy to understand?• Does the Web site offer a list of further in-depth resources or

links to such resources?• What's the copyright status of material found on the site?

WHEN was the site created?

•Is it important that the information you're looking for be absolutely current?

•Is a reference date provided to show when the material was put online, or when it was last updated?

•Do the links work?

WHERE?

•Learn to deconstruct a Uniform Resource Locator (better known as a URL or "site address").▫E.g.

http://www.oamk.fi/~teraisan/opetus/K1066BI/K1066BI.html

▫http://▫www.oamk.fi/▫~teraisan/▫opetus/K1066BI/▫K1066BI.html

WHERE?

•Country codes▫.fi is for Finland

•Organizations have their own codes▫.gov (US government)▫.gc (Canadian government)▫.edu (US educational institutions)▫.org (stardard organizations)▫.com (commercial organizations)▫.net (Internet organizations)

WHY was the site created?

•Why is the information written?•Is there any hidden agenda?•Can I get the information faster offline?•Does the online material I'm finding suit

my needs?•Am I able to verify this information?

HOW can you tell what’s what?

•When in doubt, doubt.  ▫Scepticism should be the rule of thumb on

the Net.•Apply the five Ws to the Web sites you

visit.•Double-check your facts and sources - and

then check them some more!

HOW can you tell what’s what?

•Use Meta-Web information searches to assess the credibility of Web sites. ▫This can be done by entering the author's

name into a search engine to conduct a quick background check.

•Or you can find which sites link to a specific site by going to a search engine like Google and entering a "link:" command in the Search box, followed by the page's URL.