Introduction to Social Work: Blogs & General Websites

You will have a much better chance of finding quality Internet resources if you narrow your searches to particular domains. Follow these instructions:

• Go to the Google Advanced Search
• Type one of the following three domains in the 'Search within a site or domain' box:  .edu  .org  .gov
• Type your search terms in one or more of the boxes in the 'Find web pages with...' section (near the top of the page)
• Click the 'Advanced Search' button

See the 'Evaluating Web Pages' handout on this page to get more information about finding high-quality and authoritative websites.

There are several excellent resources on the Internet that will aid you in your assignments. In the box below, you'll find some recommended websites. This is not an exhaustive list by any means - you may find several other relevant sites. However, be sure to evaluate what you find for not only relevancy, but also authority and quality. Take a look at the handout below for tips on evaluating websites.

Blogs can be a good way to keep up with current issues and perspectives in social work. Keep in mind that blogs don't necessarily have authoritative information - you will need to evaluate them for credibility (see the "Evaluating Web Pages" handout in the box above).

The link below will take you to a blog that will help you find blogs in the field of social work. For more information on blogs and how to subscribe to them, check out the "What Are RSS Feeds & Feed Readers?" box in this guide.

The following links are the most current entries in the NASW Advocacy blog.

The following links are the most current entries in the NASW News Room blog.

The websites listed here are more general websites for social work. For policy and statistical websites, go to the Policies & Statistical Websites section of this guide. Hover your mouse over each link for a description of the website.

Click the 'Submit' button below - the results list you see will include websites related to social work, and they are all either .org or .edu sites (which will generally give you more authoritative information, as opposed to .com or .net sites). You can perform your own Google search using the same search box - simply delete the default search, and type in your own search.

RSS Feeds

RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication." An RSS feed provides a way to pull content from frequently updated websites into a feed reader (a.k.a. aggregator) where you can view the content all in one place. In order to determine whether or not a feed is available for a particular website, look for something like one of the following:
 

Feed Readers & How to Subscribe to RSS Feeds

There are several freely available feed readers for you to choose from. Feed readers (or aggregators) allow you to view the content of the feeds to which you've subscribed. Click here for a list of free feed readers to choose from. This is what the feed for Christianity Today Magazine looks like in NewsBlur:

Subscribing to feeds usually includes the following steps:

• When viewing a blog, news site, or other website, look for a link or icon indicating the availability of an RSS feed (see icons above).
• Click on the link or icon - this should give you a new URL in your browser address bar, or a web page will come up that contains the feed URL. A typical feed URL looks like this:
  http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/feeds/
• Copy the URL, and add it to your feed reader. In NewsBlur, there is an "Add A New Site" plus-sign icon to click.