Find the Date

Techniques to locate the date

Here are examples of pages where the date is not clearly identified:

• The Air Car

• The Bridgewater Triangle

• Diamond Mining and Conflict

Use these techniques to locate date information:

1. If looking at the top or bottom of the page doesn't immediately reveal a date, look in columns, headings, captions--anywhere such a detail could hide. Authors don't always put the date in predictable places.

3. Sometimes the last date a page was modifed can be determined by right clicking the page and selecting 'View Page Info' (in Firefox) or 'Properties' (in IE). This doesn't necessarily mean the article was authored on this date--just that something on the page was modified then. If the information provided is very recent (seconds ago) it indicates code that automatically updates page information whether the author changed it or not.

5. Search Google, etc. using the title of the article to see if other extant copies include a date.

7. If it is critical that a historical date be established, consider searching archive.org for saved copies of the page to determine when changes to a page were made. This requires reading and comparing documents.
   

MicroModule: Date

Next: Evaluate these dates

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