Scholarly Research and the Internet

by Steve Badger, Ph.D.
Professor of Chemistry, Evangel University

Intended Audience: This essay is written specifically for college professors, regardless of their field. However, students should also find it helpful and are encouraged to read it and take a printed copy to their classmates and their professors. The format is optimized for the Internet, not for printing on paper. Many of the technical terms in the text are in color and underlined–we call them hyperlinks.  If you click on these words, you can jump to a definition of that word.  Then click on your "back" icon to return to this document. The document contains other hyperlinks, too.

From Paper to Electrons

Scholarly writing is distinguished from popular writing not only by style but also by documentation.  But we do not provide our readers with references just so they will label our work "scholarly."  Instead, documentation allows every reader 

1) to evaluate the worth of the source, 
2) to check on the accuracy of any quotations, and 
3) to determine the validity of our interpretation of our sources.

I remember quite clearly my high school introduction to The Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature. A whole world of information became available to me—although I couldn't think of anything I wanted to learn.  Only a few years later I was in college and then graduate school and knew what I needed to learn, but The Reader's Guide was no longer relevant to my research. Consequently, I became a constant user of two large, multi-volume science indexes: Biological Abstracts and Chemical Abstracts.  

Then, several years later, while conducting research at a government research lab, I was introduced to the joys of the computer literature search.  I wasn't allowed to conduct my searches directly, but I gave my keywords to a librarian who conducted my search and returned to me a list of "hits" to choose from.  Today most scholars and students know how to use CD ROM databases to find relevant materials, and the number of those also using the Internet—and especially the World Wide Web—for this purpose is growing exponentially.

Since more and more students will be using Internet materials as sources for research papers, college professors must learn how to evaluate their students' electronic sources.  Beyond that, they'll also have to learn how to cite these electronic sources so they can teach their students how to do the same.

Problems Using Internet Sources

Using materials found on the Internet poses a variety of problems.  Some of these are generic and similar to problems with printed materials; however, some problems are unique to electronic resources. Consider these.

1. Not all materials are created equal.

Historically we have evaluated a written source on the basis of one or more criteria:

Many students have not learned to apply these criteria to evaluating printed sources, much less electronic media.  In fact, few students know that all materials are not equally useful. But even if they have learned this, how can they apply it to evaluating an electronic source? Usually a student can rely on a printed journal's reputation to know that the material it contains has value as a source. But new electronic journals are still establishing their reputations.  

Frequently an article will state the writer's qualifications, but many materials on the Internet offer no clue as to the author's identity, much less his/her level of expertise. (For example, materials posted to a listserv or newsgroup are typically anonymous and therefore almost impossible to evaluate.) Since students often cannot discover the credentials of the author(s), they must use other criteria to evaluate material.  

For these reasons, we must teach students how to evaluate the style and quality of writing, the documentation of sources used, the quality of the sources used, and--most importantly--whether the author uses good argumentation that avoids logical fallacies (like ad hominem) but is characterized by cogent and sound reasoning.

With all of this in mind, students are usually well advised to choose Internet sources carefully—and to keep their number to a minimum.  To quote my friend  Rich Tatum:

The truth is, the Internet, as a tool, is useful. However, its novelty and allure can easily sway a researcher into forgetting that traditional research methods may often produce better results, faster. (Personal communication, January 6, 2000.)

2. The Internet is dynamic.  

The dynamic nature of the Internet makes it undependable.  A document might be found on a web site one day but not found the next. Worse, a web site with useful information today may be extinct tomorrow.  To further complicate the picture, high traffic sites are often "mirrored." And since any web site can hyperlink to another, a document may not be on the site that contained the link.  In this case, which URL should be cited? How can writers best tell their readers how to find the same information that they found on the Internet?

When I find a useful document that is on an "unknown" site (rather than an "authoritative" site), I search on the title of the article to see if it is also on a "better source" (such as a university, hospital, professional publication, etc.).

To quote Rich Tatum one more time: 

At the time of this writing, website content is increasingly being poured into databases. Previously, an article might reside on a server as a static HTML file, and might reliably be found at the same URL for several days, weeks or months. Now, however, with databases serving up dynamic content, the address for a particular article might change weekly, daily, or even hourly! To complicate matters even more, database and CGI-driven websites can create incredibly long URL strings that are difficult to use for citations and nearly impossible to accurately reproduce by hand. (Personal communication, January 6, 2000.)

Another complication is the fact that some documents are works in progress and are periodically modified—this essay is a case in point.  Some materials—but not all—include the revision date somewhere in the document. All of this serves to further complicate documentation.

This shortcoming can be largely overcome by having the student print out the document using a web browser that includes the URL and the date accessed in a header or footer. This "hard copy" can be filed and provided if questions about the source are raised later.  Always keep a paper copy of any important documents you find on the Internet.

3. Useful information can be difficult to find.

Imagine entering a very large research library and finding that all of the materials—books and journals—are randomly arranged.  Worse, at times you find only part of a book—the rest is elsewhere. This approximates the situation on the Internet. Happily, a dozen or so search engines bring order to this chaos.  The web is so large that we could never hope to find useful information if it were not for these tools.  Experts estimate that a good search engine will find anywhere from 10 to 30 percent of what is actually out there.

In addition to the problem of choosing key words to use in a search, the researcher using the Internet must also decide which search engine to use.  (To learn more about search engines, consult Nancy Sirapyan's "Search Sites," PC Magazine, Sept. 15, 1999.)

4. Style manuals don't tell us how to cite Internet sources—yet.

Only the latest editions of the common academic style manuals (Turabian, MLA, APA, amd CMS) explain how to cite Internet resources (WWW, ftp, Gopher, listserv, newsgroup, etc.). These manuals also provide guidance for citing other electronic materials, like some of the CD-ROM databases. We can expect future editions to expand their coverage of such sources.

What should students and professors do? Students should expect their professors to provide them with descriptions and examples of citations of Internet resources or to specify a style manual that provides complete instructions. But students should be prepared to defend their source choices. Perhaps you and your colleagues should develop citation styles for Internet sources that are consistent with the style manual adopted by your institution. A few web sites that provide suggestions for citing Internet references are listed near the end of this document.

5. The Internet makes plagiarism easy.

The ease with which we can "cut-and-paste" text from an Internet source into a word processor document facilitates plagiarism.  In fact, the ease of copying large blocks of text hinders creativity.  In response to this, some professors limit the number of Internet resources allowed in a paper.  In fact, at times, finding the original author of a document can be difficult to impossible.

6. Many new users are fooled by the plethora of hoaxes and misinformation.

If something sounds too weird to be true, it probably is.  Fortunately, several sites debunk these hoaxes and urban legends—The AFU and Urban Legends Archive is one such.  A search will usually help you find these.  In addition to these, many web sites are published by people with an agenda.  They are not attempting to disseminate truth, but to publish their propaganda.

Advantages to Using Internet Sources

With all of these problems, is the Internet a useful tool for today's researchers?  I think the answer is an emphatic, "Yes!"  Let me list some of the reasons for my answer.

1. An enormous amount of material can be searched in just a few minutes with just a few powerful search engines. You are unlikely to find a subject area that is not represented on the Internet—and some postings are scholarly.
2. The very latest thinking or arguments can be found on some, but not all, topics (e.g., computer science and astronomy).  Electronic materials are distributed much faster than printed matter.
3. You can access the card catalogs of hundreds of libraries, including public and university, both here in the USA and overseas.
4. Students can sometimes access a database or other materials that they (or their library) don't otherwise have access to.  Anyone can access ERIC, some journals (full text), a variety of ancient documents, and a host of other materials via the Internet.
5. At times, researchers can either communicate directly with a recognized expert, or they can find information written by an expert.
6. If students use a computer word processor to write their papers, they will save time since they will not have to re-type quotations. Instead, a simple "cut-and-paste" will place the quotation in the developing paper.  (Alas, as noted above, this also makes plagiarism easier and often makes original thinking more difficult.)
7. This ability to cut-and-paste also produces more accurate quotations. Citations can also be more accurate since the URL is saved in an HTML file and can be printed as a header or footer if the document is printed directly from the browser.
8. Because many students enjoy searching the Internet, often they will spend more time looking for relevant materials.

Conclusions and Suggestions

What are the implications for college professors? You cannot teach until you learn. And you cannot be a teacher unless you are a learner. So if you are going to encourage your students to use the Internet to advantage on research projects, you will first have to learn how to use it yourself. Learn how to use e-mail and at least one of the better web browsers. Learn how to use four or five of the more useful search engines. Then become familiar with what is available on the Internet in your discipline. [Note: you can find a link to several of the more useful search engines on my homepage.]

Give your students guidelines.  Tell them how many Internet sources you will allow on a paper. Try to help them learn how to evaluate the quality of electronic materials. Show them what you have found to be useful and why you have reached these conclusions.

Until the style manual adopted by your institution publishes an edition that provides rules for citing Internet sources, you should consider forming a committee of interested faculty to review how others are solving this problem and develop your own style manual.

The resources listed below should help you do this.

Bibliography of Printed Materials

Links to Relevant Electronic Documents