Home PublicationsL&LIssuesVolume 27 (1999-2000) March (No. 6)

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Students all over the country are surfing the Web for fun or “research.” As a university reference librarian, I have often scoffed at the idea of students searching the Web and using what they find in their papers. However, at the same time, I know there is much valuable information to be found on the Web, because I use it every day in my work. So why would I think that a student shouldn’t use the Web for research, but I can?

With a master’s degree in Library and Information Science, I understand where to look and how to find particular sources of information and to verify and evaluate what I find. I have been teaching these skills in a Research Methods in Sociology class for the past several semesters. My students appreciate instruction on searching the Web effectively and efficiently, because many of them have been doing poorly at it for quite some time, and they are grateful to see the little steps necessary to improve their methods. The following suggestions are meant to be helpful to teachers of students at all levels and across many disciplines. (See Web Sites for Teachers.)

Sometimes, it seems that nearly everything and everybody is on the Web—library catalogs, periodical indexes, research papers, electronic journals, newspaper articles, government statistics, and dissertations. Commercial sites, chat rooms, personal home pages, and sites for just about every organization imaginable can be found online. With so much information available, how can students tell the good resources from the bad? That’s why they need help learning to evaluate the resources they find. If they are allowed to use Internet resources for their research, they need to learn what is and is not appropriate.

Locating & Evaluating Resources

Free or Fee?
Many school and university libraries subscribe to online indexes, reference materials, and full-text journals. These products are expensive and will often require passwords, or they will note that they are available only to those individuals affiliated with the institution. If a company can charge for information and get someone to buy it, it usually indicates that the information has some value. Some of the best information on the Internet is available only to those who can pay for it. Although not always true, this is one way to quickly check the potential value of an online resource.

URLs
The easiest way to find information on the Web is to be given an address, or URL (Uniform Resource Locator), for a good site. Examining how a student found a URL is one way to evaluate the likely quality of the site. For example, if a student uses a URL because it was included in the bibliography of a printed resource, such as a magazine article or a company’s informational brochure, the Web site has some credibility. Not only is the site’s creator standing behind the material, but also another institution has referenced it, thereby giving it value. On the other hand, if a student has a URL because a friend mentioned it, the resource’s quality may be more questionable.

Search Engines
Most students who are looking for information on the Web don’t have the advantage of an address. Instead, they will use a search engine to look for Web sites. Search engines allow users to enter a few keywords to get a list of Web sites related to those words. However, your students must understand how a search engine works to use it to its greatest potential.

First, a search engine searches a database and not the entire Web, and depending on the search engine, the information in the database can be very different from what another search engine will find. That’s why performing the same search in different search engines will yield different results.

Some database creators try to index the entire Web, such as those found on Excite
(www.excite.com) and AltaVista (www.altavista.com). These huge databases cover research documents, commercial sites, personal pages, and anything else they can gather—regardless of the type or accuracy of the information. Other developers are trying to index particular subject areas, evaluating the material before it goes into the database. Argos
(http://argos.evansville.edu), MathSearch (www.maths.usyd.edu.au/MathSearch.html), and Magellan (http://magellan.excite.com) are some good examples.

These are the two ends of the search engine spectrum. Students need to choose a search engine wisely, understanding the variety and quality of information located within each. A search engine that is trying to index the entire Web may locate many poorly constructed sites, while a search engine that has a team of specialists evaluating the material may provide links to only a few, high-quality ones. (See Search Engines & Functions.)

Directories
A third search method for students is an Internet directory. Unlike search engines, which are usually compiled and organized without much human intervention, directories must be specially compiled and organized, and often are maintained by universities and libraries, thus aiding in the development of high-quality resources. Directories also provide a way for students to browse among a list of topics, which is not possible with many search engines. Browsing a list of subjects can be useful when a student is unsure of a topic or how to narrow a broad topic. Although underused by most Web searchers, directories are an easy way to locate good Internet resources. (See Directories.)

Site Sponsors
Another way to evaluate the page is to check for its sponsor. Does the address include the name of a university (indicated by the suffix .edu)? Is it a government entity (ending in .gov)? Is it a business or commercial site (.com)? Or is it a nonprofit organization (indicated by the suffix .org)? Is it a site where anybody who pays can put up a home page (indicated by one of several suffixes such as .net)? One method of checking is to backtrack on the address.

For example, take the following address for a site that discusses the crash of TWA’s Flight 800: http://webusers.anet-stl.com/~civil/govliestwaflight800.html. If you delete the last section of the address back to the second to last slash, you get http://webusers.anet-stl.com/~civil, which is the home page for the American Civil Rights Review, an organization that seems to be opposed to immigration and the integration of races in the United States. If you go back one more level on the address, you get http://webusers.anet-stl.com, which is the A-Net Gallery, a commercial site selling home page space. This gives some very valuable information about the origin of the first page on the airliner crash.

If the same page had been listed with the imaginary URLs of www.fbi.gov/investigations/Flight800.html or www.berkeley.edu/polisci/Flight800.html, you would have a very different perspective of this information’s origin.

Students don’t seem to make this connection on their own. Once you show them the link between the information and its creator, they are fascinated by the concept that, on the Web, the writer alone controls the content of the information.

Verifying Information

Good Internet resources have bibliographies, citations, authors, and dates. Electronic journals, research reports, and government statistics will indicate when the information was produced and its origin, because it is important to know who created the page and when it was last updated. If no one is willing to take credit for the page, why trust the information?

The Flight 800 home page is a good example. Sixty people are quoted as having seen a missile hit the plane, but no names are listed, and no attribution for the page’s author is provided. This should tell a student that the information is of questionable value.

Students should be instructed to look for verification. If the author of a page says he is a university professor, this is easy to verify by going to the home page for that university and searching for the professor’s name.

If a report states that Americans spend 75% of their income on federal taxes, this too can be verified. They can ask their local librarian for help verifying figures. Reference books such as the Statistical Abstracts of the United States, the World Almanac, and World Development Indicators will all verify U.S. tax figures found online.

Also, tell your students to use their instincts. If they read something on the Internet that they find hard to believe, there is a real possibility that the information isn’t true. Most information is not located only on the Internet. Direct them to the library to see if the same information can be verified in a printed resource.

Citing Information from the Net

Students should properly cite the information they find on the Internet because it is important to give the author credit. Further, it’s important to cite the information so that others can identify and access it. Style manuals, such as The Chicago Manual of Style, the Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual, The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, and the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA), explain the proper way to cite references. Nearly all libraries carry style manuals, and several are now accessible online. Traditionally, these manuals have included only the proper way to cite paper sources. However, most manuals now show how to cite information located on the Internet. Students are often surprised to learn the differences in citing an Internet article compared with one referenced in its paper format. Guidelines from the Modern Language Association (MLA) can be found on the Web at www.mla.org/style/sources.htm, and APA guidelines are located at www.apa.org/journals/webref.html. Yahooligans! has created a helpful page (www.yahooligans.com/content/tg/citation.html), intended for students who are not required to follow a formal style.

Conclusion

The Internet is a valuable research tool. A curious teenager can now locate information that was once buried for all but the most persistent researcher.

Government statistics, research reports, journal articles, and more can all be found without having to leave the classroom, office, or home. However, the information can’t always be found easily and quickly—smart strategies are necessary. Students who wouldn’t spend more than two hours in a library will devote entire days to the Internet trying to locate what they need. As teachers, we need to tap into this curiosity. We need to embrace our students’ desire to use the Internet and teach them how to do it well. With good search strategies and critical evaluation techniques, students can locate much of what they need for a serious research paper by using the Internet.

Copyright © 2000, ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education). All rights reserved.