Research Using the Internet

Written by W. Brock MacDonald, Academic Skills Centre, and June Seel, UTM Library

Fair-Use Policy
More and more students are turning to the Internet when doing research for their assignments, and more and more instructors are
requiring such research when setting topics. However, research on the Net is very different from traditional library research, and the
differences can cause problems. The Net is a tremendous resource, but it must be used carefully and critically.
The printed resources you find in the Library have almost always been thoroughly evaluated by experts before they are published.
This process of "peer review" is the difference between, for example, an article in Time magazine and one in a journal such as the
University of Toronto Quarterly. Furthermore, when books and other materials come into the University library system, they are
painstakingly and systematically catalogued and cross-referenced using procedures followed by research libraries the world over.
This process is the basis for the way materials are organized in the Library, and it makes possible the various search functions of the
Web catalogue.
On the Internet, on the other hand, "anything goes." Anyone can put anything they want on a Web site, there is no review or
screening process, and there are no agreed-upon standard ways of identifying subjects and creating cross-references. This is both
the glory and the weakness of the Net - it's either freedom or chaos, depending on your point of view, and it means that you have to
pay close attention when doing research on-line. There are a great many solid academic resources available on the Net, including
hundreds of on-line journals and sites set up by universities and scholarly or scientific organizations. The University of Toronto
Library's Electronic Resources page is one such academic source. Using material from those sources is no problem; it's just like
going to the Library, only on-line. It's all the other stuff on the Net that you have to be cautious about.
Here are a few basic guidelines to remember:

Don't rely exclusively on Net resources. Sometimes your assignment will be to do research only on the Net, but usually
your instructors will expect you to make use of both Internet and Library resources. Cross-checking information from the Net
against information from the Library is a good way to make sure that the Net material is reliable and authoritative.
Narrow your research topic before logging on. The Internet allows access to so much information that you can easily be
overwhelmed. Before you start your search, think about what you're looking for, and if possible formulate some very specific
questions to direct and limit your search.
Know your subject directories and search engines. There are several high quality peer-reviewed subject directories
containing links selected by subject experts. INFOMINE and Academic Info are good examples. These are excellent places
to start your academic research on the Internet. Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines differ considerably in how
they work, how much of the Net they search, and the kind of results you can expect to get from them. Spending some time
learning what each search engine will do and how best to use it can help you avoid a lot of frustration and wasted time later.
Because each one will find different things for you, it's a good idea to always use more than one search engine. For
specialized search engines and directories you might also like to try Beaucoup which includes 2,500 + search engines and
directories or the Search Engine Colossus International Directory of Search Engines that includes search engines from 230+
countries around the world.
Keep a detailed record of sites you visit and the sites you use. Doing research on the Net inevitably means visiting
some sites that are useful and many that are not. Keeping track is necessary so that you can revisit the useful ones later, and
also put the required references in your paper. Don't just rely on your browser's History function, because it retains the Web
addresses or URLs of all the sites you visit, good or bad, and if you're using a computer at the University the memory in the
History file will be erased at the end of your session. It's better to write down or bookmark the sites you've found useful, so
that you'll have a permanent record.
Double-check all URLs that you put in your paper. It's easy to make mistakes with complicated Internet addresses, and
typos will make your references useless. To be safe, type them into the Location box of your browser and check that they
take you to the correct site.

The following points are guidelines for evaluating specific resources you find on the Net. If you ask these questions when looking at a
Web site, you can avoid many errors and problems.

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Authority
Who is the author?
Is the author's name given?
Are her qualifications specified?
Is there a link to information about her and her position?
Is there a way to contact her (an address or a "Mailto" link)?
Have you heard of her elsewhere (in class, or cited in your course text or in Library material)?
Has the author written elsewhere on this topic?
Affiliation
Who is the sponsor of the Web site?
Is the author affiliated with a reputable institution or organization?
Does the information reflect the views of the organization, or only of the author? If the sponsoring institution or
organization is not clearly identified on the site, check the URL. It may contain the name of a university (U of T
Mississauga's includes utoronto) or the extension .edu, which is used by many educational institutions. Government sites
are identified by the extension .gov. URLs containing .org are trickier, and require research: these are sites sponsored by
non-profit organizations, some of which are reliable sources and some of which are very biased. Sites with the .com
extension should also be used with caution, because they have commercial or corporate sponsors who probably want to
sell you something. The extension ~NAME often means a personal Web page with no institutional backing; use such
sites only if you have checked on the author's credibility in print sources.
Audience Level
What audience is the Web site designed for? You want information at the college or research level. Don't use sites
intended for elementary students or sites that are too technical for your needs.
Currency
Is the Web site current?
Is the site dated?
Is the date of the most recent update given? Generally speaking, Internet resources should be up-to-date; after all,
getting the most current information is the main reason for using the Net for research in the first place.
Are all the links up-to-date and working? Broken links may mean the site is out-of-date; they're certainly a sign that
it's not well-maintained.
Content Reliability/Accuracy
Is the material on the Web site reliable and accurate?
Is the information factual, not opinion?
Can you verify the information in print sources?
Is the source of the information clearly stated, whether original research material or secondary material borrowed
from elsewhere?
How valid is the research that is the source?
Does the material as presented have substance and depth?
Where arguments are given, are they based on strong evidence and good logic?
Is the author's point of view impartial and objective?
Is the author's language free of emotion and bias?
Is the site free of errors in spelling or grammar and other signs of carelessness in its presentation of the material?
Are additional electronic and print sources provided to complement or support the material on the Web site?

If you can answer all these questions positively when looking at a particular site, then you can be pretty sure it's a good one; if it
doesn't measure up one way or another, it's probably a site to avoid. The key to the whole process is to think critically about what you

find on the Net; if you want to use it, you are responsible for ensuring that it is reliable and accurate.

Foreword
The Internet is now a key research tool and learning how to use it effectively for academic purposes
is a skill that will benefit you greatly in all areas of your work.
Content

01 Introduction
02 Surf with caution
03 Prioritise well-established, academic resource sites
04 Use the University website and departmental webpages
05 Search engines: what they are and improving your returns
06 Specialized search engines
07 Web links
08 Essay banks, blogging, chat rooms and personal webpages
09 Judging a website's usefulness and validity
10 Referencing online sources
01 Introduction

The Internet can contribute significantly to your studies in a number of ways, for example
via:

Direct access to subject-specific material: full text materials, electronic books and
journals, databases, etc.

Utilisation of new web-based learning tools and technologies: email and online
discussion forums, WebCT, video-conferencing, etc.

Exploration of virtual spaces allowing us to 'visit' libraries, government research

centres and organisational websites, and to browse or use their facilities.

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02 Surf with caution

The Internet is all things, so understanding how to distinguish reliable sources from
unreliable ones is crucial, as is appreciating how to use and reference material that is
effectively 'live' (i.e. capable of changing daily, unlike books).
In addition, the Internet has contributed to a significant rise in the incidence of plagiarism,
due variously to:

The sheer volume and immediacy of material;

A related sense of anonymity and freedom from regulation;

A proliferation of essay-banks and websites offering tailor-made essays;

The ease of 'copy and paste';

A lack of clarity over how Internet-based sources should be referenced.

Advanced electronic detection systems also exist, however, and universities are making
increasing use of these to tackle the problem of plagiarism. Essex subscribes to the JISC
plagiarism detection service.
So, while the Internet may provide ample opportunity for careless and inappropriate practice
in your research, if not deliberate cheating, it is also increasingly the technology that will
catch you out.

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03 Prioritise well-established, academic resource sites

Make these your focus, at least in the first instance. The following sites will provide you with
some useful starting points.
Sites that teach you HOW to use the Internet:

The Resource Discovery Network (RDN): links you to key subject-specific sites in
all academic fields, and provides an excellent Virtual Training Suite which includes a free
online tutorial for students and researchers, aimed at helping you improve your Internet
information literacy and IT skills.

Subject-specific sites:

See departmental webpages for lists. Otherwise ask academic staff.

Subject-specific search engines:

See departmental webpages for lists. Otherwise ask academic staff.

Online journals:

See departmental webpages for lists. Otherwise ask academic staff.

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04 Use the University website and departmental webpages

For the most part, the University website and departmental webpages will be more useful to
you as sources of information and links to support your learning, than for subject-specific
information directly. Here are some good starting points:

Course Materials Repository (CMR): is, as its name suggests, an online 'depot' for
course materials for all subjects, providing access to course outlines, reading lists, etc.,
and a range of course resources and teaching materials.

Library subscription to online databases: many of the most useful subject-based

databases are only available to 'members'. Fortunately, the University subscribes to a
range of them on your behalf. You can access these via the library website, using your
usual logon and password.

Staff pages: it's always worth knowing your way around the academic research
interests in the department. The teaching staff really are your biggest resource,
because you can actually talk to them (and this does still count for something!). So, it is
worth checking out staff pages.

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05 Search engines: what they are and improving your returns

A search engine is simply a machine that searches the Internet on your behalf and sends you
back brief details ('returns') of webpages that bear some relevance to the information you
requested.
It is, of course, easy - and in principle perfectly legitimate - to simply begin your research on
a particular topic with a search engine (e.g. Google).

Today, the popularity of Google is such that many people use it almost exclusively. It is no
doubt an extremely powerful search facility, but nonetheless has the same shortcomings and
risks as any other. Some tips:

All search engines can be frustrating in that, unless your search is very specific, or an
'advanced' search is employed, they have a tendency to return vast amounts of
material, of very mixed relevance and worth; at best this contributes quickly to
despondency on the part of the overwhelmed researcher!

An easy way - where appropriate - to refine a search is to enclose within inverted

commas any words which invariably fall together (the search engine will then only
return results where these words occur precisely as detailed).

EXAMPLE: searching for information relating to the BSA, enter your search as "British
Sociological Association" (thus reducing Google returns from 1,560,000 to 95,200). Ok,
room for improvement! But you can still add additional words to the search, for
example '"British Sociological Association" 2005 conference gender' (739 returns).

Try a meta-search engine: meta-search engines are search engines which search
other search engines and give you the most relevant returns from each. The downside
is they're not as powerful as a 'single' search engine (e.g. Google), but some people
argue they give more precise - and therefore potentially - useful returns. Try Mamma,
the 'Mother of all search engines'.

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06 Specialized search engines

Today, there are also an increasing number of search engines targeted at specific usergroups (academics being an obvious example), and/or subject areas:

Google Scholar covers all subject areas, but is aimed at academics. It enables you to
"search specifically for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses,
books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research [and]
find articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint
repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web'
(http://scholar.google.com 18/9/05).

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07 Web links

There are many sites offering lists of 'useful links', i.e. to other sites held to be of interest
within a given subject area. These can be extremely useful (like using the bibliography of a
book to snowball your reading), but again be discerning:

Prioritise lists from sources you know to be reliable;

REMEMBER, the further you 'browse' or 'surf' away from known and trusted
sources/sites, the more skilled you will need to be in making judgements about the
authenticity and reliability of the pages you visit.

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08 Essay banks, blogging, chat rooms and personal webpages

AVOID AT ALL COSTS, unless you are a very experienced online researcher and you are
using the following types of sources for clearly defined purposes (for example 'content
analysis', i.e. where such sources are the actual subject matter of your search). You are welladvised to avoid the following:
Essay banks and tailor-made writing services

Online collections of completed essays by past students, and services offering to write
an essay for you (for a fee) to your own title specifications are inevitably tempting to
those seeking the guidance or reassurance of 'real' samples.

Essay banks are easy to come by, unregulated, and basically a short-cut to plagiarism.
DO NOT FOOL YOURSELF that using them will contribute in any useful way to your
work. At best, you may be 'teaching yourself' from pretty second-rate material; at worst
you are simply cheating and you stand a very high risk of being caught.

Discussion threads and bloggers

It's fine to take part in online discussion groups and to contribute to discussion
threads. Many of these are serious in their intent and good places to test and hone your
thinking.

However, don't quote from them just because you can (i.e. because there's a printed
account of what was said). It's still 'discussion', and this is qualitatively different from
carefully considered and argued published text.

Blogging is the act of publishing informally online by simply uploading thoughts and
opinions. Today, there is an explosion of blogging sites, many of which are subjectspecific and may fool the inexperienced researcher with the confidence of the opinions
expressed, and their 'journalistic' appeal. Remember, you know nothing about who the
authors are, or what authority they have for expressing a view on the subject.

Personal webpages

Treat as above.

Chat rooms

Again, unless you are entering them or observing them as subject material, do not use
them as a source of information or expertise, even if they profess to be subject-specific
(you don't know who they are, and you can't reference a chat!).

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09 Judging a website's usefulness and validity

This is the really important bit! The Internet will give you absolutely everything. How you go
about deciding which material is sufficiently serious, trustworthy and reliable to use for
academic research purposes is the on-going big question.
Some ideas have been given already. Here are some other good tips:

Judging search engine returns

If you are using a search engine to research a specific area, you can begin to form a
judgement about the 'returns' before you even follow up a link, or reach the suggested page:

Search returns frequently take you to webpages (or even sections of pages) rather
than website 'homes'. As a result, when opening up a link, you may often find its origins
are not immediately apparent.

When deciding which returns to follow up, it is useful, therefore, to quickly scan the
first part of the website address (otherwise known as the 'URL' - Uniform Resource
Location) given at the bottom of the return. You can tell a lot about the 'seriousness'
(usefulness and validity) of the address you're being directed to by looking at the bit
that comes immediately BEFORE '.com' or '.co.uk'

Eg: a Google search on 'ethnicity women conference uk' brings up this return:
http://www.britsoc.co.uk/new_site/text_index.php?area=
Although the full address is longwinded, its opening section indicates that the webpage
is a derivative of the BSA (British Sociological Association) site, and therefore to be
trusted.

5 useful questions to ask yourself

Monash University's online library tutorial provides a very useful introduction here.
Researchers are advised to ask themselves the following questions:

Who is responsible for the site - is there a name and contact address?

What is its rationale - is it endorsing a particular viewpoint to the exclusion

of other views?

Is there a reference list or bibliography of corroborative evidence?

Is there a date when the site was last updated - how long ago did this
happen?

Does the site seem to be permanent or part of a permanent organisation?

http://www.lib.monash.edu.au/vl/www/wwwcon.htm (20/9/05)

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10 Referencing online sources

Systems for referencing online sources are still being negotiated. Established referencing
systems (e.g. Harvard), which have been developed over many years in relation to published
hardcopy books and journal articles, are finding their own ways to incorporate the
peculiarities of online material.

The main problems that arise are:

Possible solution:

1. Web-based material is 'live' i.e. it is

capable of changing daily.

Always provide an 'access date' i.e. the

dateyou viewed the source online

2. It's not always possible to tell who the

author is

If the webpage doesn't specify, use

thesmallest unit of responsibility, this may
for example need to be the website title
itself.

3. Web-based articles aren't always pagenumbered, so it can be hard to be precise

about the specific location of the text
cited/quoted.

Be as precise as the text allows you. If the

webpage has its own heading, reference
this.;

4. Web addresses and associated

information can be lengthy, and referencing
them therefore cumbersome, in-text at
least.

As you would do referencing a book,

include the name (author, or title if
necessary) and year in-text. If this is not
sufficient to direct the reader to your
bibliography, use a footnote

The guiding principle, as with any form of referencing, should be to provide information that
is as comprehensive as possible, in the briefest form possible. Good referencing enables the
reader to follow up source material accurately, without unduly distracting from the content of
the text itself.
For more information about referencing online sources, please go to Referencing section.