How to Conduct Research:

Using the Internet

Many beginning researchers look toward the Internet as their first, and sometimes only, source of information.  The Internet is certainly more convenient than leafing through books, but it does come with its own drawbacks.  Before I get into the drawbacks, I will lead you to a couple of extremely useful places to begin on-line research.

Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com): this is a search engine that only searches for scholarly articles.  Caution: sometimes you will not be able to read an entire article or book that you find on Google Scholar.  This means you might have to go to the library to find the book itself.

Alabama Virtual Library (http://www.avl.lib.al.us): follow these steps to access helpful databases.

  1. Mouse over the “Student Resources” tab.

  2. Click on “Colleges and Universities.”

  3. Click on “Go to College and University Resources.”

  4. Choose a database to begin your research.  (I personally like Academic Search Premiere and Opposing Viewpoints in Context.)

A word about Wikipedia:  although Wikipedia may be a fine place to start, it is not the right place to finish your research.  In fact, you should NOT use Wikipedia for your papers AT ALL.

                                          You are welcome to explore Wikipedia to get a better handle on your umbrella topic, but it should not be the source you use to get all of your information.  Scroll down to the bottom of the entry you are reading on Wikipedia and write down the sources listed in the References section.  Then, go find and read those sources yourself.

                                          Wikipedia is an unreliable source for research because anyone under the sun has access to editing individual entries.  It is often difficult to verify specific information without conducting outside research anyway.  You may as well start with a different source.

The Drawbacks: a word of caution about using the Internet

Web outlets like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and various other blogging sites have taught us that literally anyone in the world can write anything and post it to the Internet.  When you use the Internet, you should remember the following phrase:

Just because it’s written down, does NOT mean that I should believe it!

When you use the Internet, you should do so with great skepticism.  The Internet can truly be a wonderful tool for research, especially when it comes to convenience as well as access.  With the Internet, we can access information all kinds of sources from all around the world.  But just as easily as we can obtain reliable information, we can easily access unreliable information.

As you use the Internet, go through the following checklist of questions:

1. What is the domain name?  Does it end in .org, .gov, .edu, or .com?
   1. Web sites that end in .org, .gov, and .edu are specifically associated with a business, government agency, or educational institution.  While not every word on these sites is necessarily perfectly right, these are often more credible than web sites that end in .com because they go through a specific editing process before going live on the Internet.
2. Who wrote this article?  Is it a real person’s name or a silly Internet handle?
   1. Proceed with caution if you cannot find a specific author for an article.  You should be able to locate an individual’s name (or even a group of individuals’ names).  Sometimes the best you can do is find the name of an organization as the credit for the article.
   1. If you locate an article that is written by “Mr. E Man,” you should proceed with caution.  Although Mr. E Man might be an expert in his field, he really should use his real name if the article is reliable and credible.
3. When was this web site last updated?
   1. Reliable sources often include a date of publication (either a month and year or, even better, the date that the article was released on the Internet).  You will want to use sources that are no older than 2002.  New research is always conducted on most topics (believe it or not, there are even brand new articles written about Shakespeare all the time!), so it is worth digging through the sources to find the latest information.
4. Where did the author obtain his or her information for this article?
   1. Credible Internet sources will look a lot like the sources you can find in print.  They will look official, have a specific format, and they will also include a Bibliography, Reference List, or Works Cited list to guide readers to their primary sources of research.  ALL of your Internet sources should have a list of references.  If you find an article that claims to be reliable that does not list where they got their information, then be extremely cautious and ask yourself, “Why don’t they tell me where they got that information?”

As you research sources on the Internet, use this checklist to help guide you.  There are several more questions you could and should ask yourself as you remember that you can’t believe everything you read.  Also, just because you may answer “no” to one of the questions on this checklist does not necessarily mean that your source is unreliable.  Use this as a guideline only.