There was an interesting article in the Computimes section of the Irish Times a couple of weeks ago. It said some teachers and lecturers are finding that Internet search facilities may be harming our ability to conduct research.
There were stories of pupils and students using the Internet to conduct research, rather than visiting the library or phoning someone to get the necessary information firsthand. It also put forward the very interesting theory that, sometime in the future, information not available on the web may be assumed not to exist at all.
It is a valid point and one that warrants further scrutiny. In many ways the Internet's greatest uses are the exact same as its greatest drawbacks. For anyone conducting academic, or any other, research, the sheer vastness of what the Internet holds means that there's a strong chance that what you want is there somewhere. However, that same vastness may make the research task even harder.
The web's other great attribute, immediacy, means that putting a word or phrase into a search engine will automatically throw up some answers - you could look through mountains of books in a library and possibly find only one paragraph of any use. On the other hand, some terms will offer up thousands, even millions, of web links. No-one could possibly have time to go through them all, but how many people just go through the first four or five links and halt their research? Then there is the fact that the listing of relevant links is so arbitrary anyway. Who is to say what criteria the people compiling the links to any word or phrase used. How up-to-date are the links? How many of them are now completely redundant?
You also have to consider whether all points of view regarding contentious issues are being given an equal hearing if you are just viewing the first five links that a search engine throws up.
In addition to concerns for the relevance of some of what is found on the web, there is the huge question as to whether accessed links constitute genuine research or if they have simply been cut out and pasted into an essay document without any real understanding of the topic covered.
This subject is rarely addressed, but as more people get access to the Internet, it is something that is bound to crop up more often as a bone of academic contention. While researching an article on Coney Island, New York, last year, I came across a message at http://naid.sppsr.ucla.edu/ coneyisland/articles/ coneyname.htm (see note below) which warns students that if they are accessing the site from a school computer the server will recognise the computer's address and send an e-mail to the school warning them to watch out for possible plagiarism in school reports.
It seems very stark, but it goes on to offer the advice to rewrite the material in your own words: "It becomes especially obvious to your teacher, when those who write poorly submit research papers with nearly perfect grammar and sentence structure. Credit your sources because your teachers base your grade partially on where you did your research; web, books, magazines, newspapers, etc." The use of online research in school essays or college papers should, of course, be credited in the same way that any other research is credited. For a good guide to what is and is not acceptable in relation to citing Internet research, see www.bedfordstmartins.com/online/index.html.
The answers to a lot of questions are out there on the World Wide Web, but you have to be very selective in your search. (By the way, maybe it is because I am a journalist and not an academic, but the most satisfying part of writing that article was actually being in Coney Island, talking to people and experiencing the place first-hand.)
