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Objective
In this lesson, you will learn to use the Internet effectively so that you can
choose the most relevant and authoritative sources for academic papers and writing
projects.
Thinking About Using the Internet
The Internet contains a wide variety of information, including articles, book
reviews, essays, web pages, and listservs about many topics that you may need
to research while you are in school. Often, the Internet can be used as an effective
research tool. However, because not every web site is designed and written by
credible authors, you need to learn certain skills to make it a more reliable
research tool.
A Few Internet Basics
The Internet can be a useful way to research a subject, but before you can do
the research, you should know a few basics about accessing the Internet and
about what is available there.
- There are various "browsers" that get you into the World Wide
Web (www or web, for short). Most often, you'll use Internet Explorer (IE),
Netscape, or the AOL browser. Although the AOL browser works a little differently
and can be somewhat limiting for users, you can use your AOL browser to get
into IE or Netscape.
- To find information on the Internet, you must use the address correctly,
with every letter, number, and punctuation mark represented accurately. Every
website has an address, which is the Uniform Resource Locator, or URL. Use
this address in your address line to find the site that you want.
- You should know, too, that not every site is credible and reliable; there
are some inaccurate sources and extremely biased viewpoints posted on the
Internet. As we will emphasize throughout this lesson, posting one's thoughts
on the Internet, and posting thinking that is thoughtful and reliable are
two different things!
What types of information are on the Internet?
Online libraries and library catalogues. Your own college library
most likely has many sources available on the Internet. See Chapter
3, Lesson 11: Using the Library Wisely for more information about these
sites. Online indexes and databases. Some have abstracts of articles that you can
order, and others have full texts of the article that you want. Online news, magazines, and journals. Newspapers like The Washington
Post, The New York Times, and even your local paper are on the
web; many offer their articles without subscription cost. Magazines geared
to the general public (like Time Magazine) and journals directed to
professionals (like Kairos: A Journal for Teachers of Writing in Webbed
Environments) are available for free on the web for your use. Online texts. Some full texts may be available on the web. Readers should
be cautious about these texts, however, because some are not "authoritative"
or complete, and most will not have page numbers that you can cite. Non-profit research sites. Some non-profit groups, such as those whose mission
is to search for missing children or those that discuss health issues like
arthritis, will have websites. Usually, these sites are recognizable by the
.org ending for their URL. Individual and sponsored web pages. You can access individual people's homepages
or web pages that they've created for their personal use or to publish their
own opinions. We recommend that you read these with a "grain of salt"
because they may have some useful information, but they may not have cited
their own sources and their information may be very biased. Sponsored web
pages include those of most universities, colleges, and even some high schools.
These web pages are designed to help readers get to know their offerings and
also to lead readers to other sources. Hypertext links. Many people browse the Internet by following hypertext
links that are embedded in the text of a website. Those links, which most
often are underlined or are in blue text, can take you to related information
(sometimes within the initial website and sometimes beyond that site). Examples
of hypertext links that stay within a website are those in the SMARTHINKING
Writer's Handbook. Each lesson is linked to others in the handbook that might
help you with particular writing concerns that you have. Email discussion lists. Many people use the Internet through their email
to access asynchronous (non-real-time) discussion lists. They use these "listservs"
and "distribution lists" to talk with other people with similar
interests. Sometimes, archives of these extended discussions are available,
and the list master will offer the archive address for list members.
Conducting an Online Search through a Keyword Search
There are various ways to conduct a web search. For example, you may be able
to go to an Internet search engine (like Google or Yahoo) and type in a book
title or author name and reach the source you want. However, since the Internet
search engines are geared to search for many variables, the book title may give
you too many (and inappropriate) sources. We're going to discuss the keyword
search method in this lesson.
The keyword search method really is a number of different ways to use keywords,
or words that may lead to your topic, in an Internet search. Some ways to expand
and narrow your search for more precise results may be found in the "Help"
menu of the search engine. Here are some hints for using "Boolean"
terms to help you to expand and narrow your search:
AND between keywords will tell the search engine to find sources
that include two specific words (e.g., multiple AND intelligences). AND
narrows your search. In some search engines, the AND is represented by a
plus (+).
NOT also narrows your search. Orioles NOT baseball will narrow
your search to orioles as birds or some other uses of the word. In some
search engines, the NOT is represented by a minus (-).
OR between keywords will expand the search. OR tells the search
engine to find sources that include either one of two words, sometimes synonyms
(e.g., students OR youth).
Combining these terms will help you to become even more precise in your search.
For example, murderers AND high school OR student will help you to locate information
about high school students who have killed other students, as opposed to adults
who have killed youths.
Grouping and phrasing helps to eliminate unwanted results. For example, George
Washington will yield results that include George Harrison and Washington, DC.
"George Washington" with quotes or with parentheses (George Washington)
specifies to the search engine that you want only information about the first
American president.
Wildcard characters like * and ? help you to shorten a term, while broadening
the search. For example, if you type write* as your keyword, you can
get results for writer, writers, and writing.
For more information about keyword and other searches, use your writing handbook,
or talk to a professional in your computer lab.
Search Engines
There are numerous sites, called "search engines," on which you can
performa keyword search. Most of these are available through your web browser.
· Internet Public Library: http://www.ipl.org
· WWW Virtual Library: http://vlib.org
· Google: http://www.google.com
· Yahoo: http://www.yahoo.com
· Excite: http://www.excite.com
· AltaVista: http://www.altavista.com
· WebCrawler: http://www.webcrawler.com
· MetaCrawler: http://www.metacrawler.com, which searches other search
engines
· Liszt: http://www.liszt.com for addresses to discussion lists
Internet Source Evaluation: A Checklist
In order to write a paper that provides strong evidence for the point that you
are making in your thesis, you must choose the best sources available. Using
the following checklist, let's look at some ways to evaluate Internet sources
for an academic paper.
Relevance: Does the website provide information that you need? Does
it answer questions that your research poses? The website should not just
be another source to put on your list. The sources you choose should provide
important information that can be used in your writing.
Author: It is helpful to know who the author is when evaluating a
website.
o Is the author of the website identified? Sometimes, the "author"
is the organization that posted the site and no one person is given credit.
You then have to consider the credibility of the organization before dismissing
the website as useless or deciding it is your best source.
o Does the author/s have credentials in the field about which s/he is writing?
In other words, if you have to choose between a ten-year-old girl's Internet
website about George Lucas' novels and movie series, Star Wars, or a well-known
literary scholar's journal article published on the Internet about Star
Wars and the hero's journey, you would choose the journal article written
by the literary scholar.
Credibility: This aspect of source evaluation is especially important
for Internet sites. Is there contact information for the publisher/author
of the website? Does the contact email address or other contact information
work? If there is a link to the author's email address, can you email the
author and get a response? If any of these questions is not answered with
a "yes," then this website may not be not credible and you should
not use it for college or employment-related research.
Publication date: Is there a clear publication date? Has the website
been updated in the last year? Information is considered more reliable if
the publication date is recent and if the web page itself has been updated
recently or frequently. For some fields of study, like biology, the publication
date is extremely important since new research is published frequently in
the sciences.
Audience: For whom was the information written? The answer might be
for specialists in the field, for amateurs, or for children. If you are writing
for an academic or professional audience, the information needs to be more
detailed, accurate, and sophisticated than if the website is providing information
for a fan club or a private audience. For example, a person's homepage usually
does not have strong enough proofs for most academic essays, and many teachers
will not accept these as valid sources. Make sure that the material is appropriate
in level of depth and breadth for the academic topic you are researching.
Length: Is the website or web page very short? A one-page website
might not provide enough information for you to fully understand the topic
presented. Is the web page or website detailed enough to provide the breadth
and depth of information about your subject that you need? Does the shorter
website make up for brevity by linking you to other, more helpful websites?
If it does, this website might be considered a good portal to other sources
and, therefore, might be appropriate to bookmark for later reference or even
to cite if you actually use it for your writing.
Website Type Identifier: Every website has a URL, which is its address.
The ending is comprised of three letters (.xxx) that indicate what type of
organization is publishing the website itself. From these letters, web users
get important clues about the nature of the sites' content. Here are some
of the most common endings:
o .gov (government)
o .edu (educational)
o .com (commercial or personal)
o .net (network or portal opening; sometimes a personal website)
o .org (non-profit organization)
o .mil (military)
Every one of these website types is published by people with their own purpose.
You should keep the author (or group) in mind as you read the information
on any site. For example, you might get different information about an election
on a .gov site than you might on a.edu site.
Of these website endings, the most common is the .com ending. Some people
believe that .com websites are the least credible and scholarly websites available
because the writers may have a "for profit" agenda or motive. This
is because almost anyone can get a .com website, while .gov, .edu, or .org
websites are only given out to certain groups. Yet, many .com websites have
a lot of research and thought in them. Some actually are the search engines
that will lead you to your ultimate research goals (like altavista.com). Thus,
not all commercial sites lack credibility. In fact, the best researchers may
have preferences in types of websites, but they understand that each site
should be evaluated on the basis of the bias and agenda of the authors.
Source Type: Frankly, one of the weaknesses of the Internet is that
anyone at all can create and post a web page. That weakness is also one of
the Internet's greatest strengths, however. The Internet allows many people
research ideas and to voice their thoughts. Therefore, when your source is
a website, you must evaluate it thoroughly: Is this site an example of the
Internet's weaknesses or strengths? Ask yourself all of the questions in the
checklist above and answer them honestly. The website you have found may have
wonderful content, but no author; yet, if the posting organization is the
"author," and the organization itself is credible, then the site
may be credible.
Tip: In order to use an Internet source with confidence, you will want to be
sure that the source meets most of the criteria in this checklist.
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Exercise
Two sample websites are provided in the each exercise. Using the information
given and the checklist above, decide which of the two websites would be the
best outside source to use in your paper. You may find the choices challenging,
because, as you will see in our own answers below, there are strong points to
each site.
1. A. Website: "All About George Washington." (www.florida.georgew.edu)
Author: John Jones, Ph.D. Email address at the University of Florida is provided
Publication Date: 2002
B. Website: "Fun Facts about the First President." (www.factsonline.com)
Author: Bob Prescott. No email address is given.
Publication Date: 2002
2. A. Website: "The Life of Flannery O'Connor." (www.flanneryo.com)
Author: Anna Crow. Email address given. Email address works.
Publication Date: 1998, updated in 2001.
B. Website: "O'Connor's Trickster Characters." (www.oconnorfound.org)
Author: Joseph Williams, M.A. Email address given. Email address works.
Publication date: 1999. Updated in 2001.
3. A. Website: "The Human Genome Project." (www.research.gov)
Author: William Rand, Ph.D. No email address given.
Publication date: 1997. No updates.
B. Website: "Sequencing the Human Genome." (www.criswell.edu)
Author: Alan Ganish, Ph.D. Email address given. Email address works.
Publication date: 2000. No updates.
Correct Answers
1. A. is correct. The .edu website is fairly reliable and it is the best choice
for an academic resource. The email address is given for the author, and it
works. The author, most likely an expert on George Washington, has an agenda,
which is to educate readers about the first president. The "fun facts"
site may also provide some interesting tidbits, but its writer has a different
agenda, which probably is to interest people in George Washington's life; readers
will need another source to learn more about Washington.
2. B. is correct. The .org website probably is fairly reliable, in part because
a non-profit organization tends to have more credibility over commercial ones.
The author's name and address are listed, and his title of M.A. (for "Master's
degree) also is listed. His email address is provided, and it works. The publication
date of 1999 and the update in 2001 add another measure of credibility to this
website. However, a good researcher would also take a look at the .com site
since it also has been updated recently and the author may have done some extensive
research into the subject.
3. B. is correct. The .org website probably is fairly reliable. The author's
name, title of Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy degree), and email address are provided,
and the email address works. The publication date of 2000 is acceptable for
a rapidly developing scientific study like mapping the human genome. However,
the .gov website probably has some useful information as well. Its presence
as a website indicates that the information was part of well-funded research
and the author has a Ph.D., which is a factor in reliability for a scientific
study. Yet, because its information is not as recent as the .org site, this
site has to be understood as potentially less helpful. Overall, a good researcher
would read these sites, but also would look for other sites that are more recent
in human genome study.
Summary
When you are writing a paper that includes Internet sources remember the key
concepts outlined in this lesson. When you have gathered several Internet sources
and other types of sources and you need to choose the best ones for your particular
assignment, remember to consider the relevance of the source to the topic, the
author of the source, the credibility and authority of the author, the publication
date of the source, the audience for whom the source was written, the length
of the source, and the type of source.
For more information about researching a topic, also read Chapter 3, Process,
Lessons 10 - 13 in this handbook ("Evaluating Sources,"
"Research for Academic and Non-Academic Audiences,"
"Using the Library Wisely," and "Conducting
Field Research").
For information on how to use these sources well, read Chapter 3, Process,
Lesson 9 in this handbook ("Evaluating Sources").
For information on how to document these sources, read Chapter 3, Process,
Lesson 14 in this handbook ("MLA and APA Documentation").
  
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