How to Research Using the Internet

I can remember learning about the card catalogs and the Dewey decimal system in school. If I didn't know exactly which shelf to look for my book on, I knew exactly which drawer to pull out to guide me. And I remember when my parents bought a set of green Encyclopedia Britannicas. I loved them. You had a choice of the "Micropedia" books that gave brief overviews of a million topics, or the "Macropedia" books that really went into depth when you needed to know every detail about a subject, like when I did a research project on Italy. I had more information in front of me than I would ever be able to understand. I loved research. And I loved going to the library in college and pulling out fifteen different books - spreading them all in front of me to finish my assignments.

And now, I have a job where I get to research every day. But the research I do these days is completely different from what it used to look like. The internet has changed that.

The internet is a fabulous creature. Gathering more and more information every day, it constantly grows and changes. Honestly, I prefer researching online these days. I might miss the feel of the paper between my fingers - but I give that up gladly for the timeliness of information I have at the click of my mouse.

You see, by day, I write science textbooks. And textbooks can't be wrong. So, all day I get to "fact check." If we say that the largest iceberg is the size of Rhode Island, I need to make sure that's true. But, icebergs can break off every day. And books - by the time they're printed, they're most likely out of date. So there's newspapers and magazines - but the world of RSS feeds and bloggers can get you information even faster at times. So, if I want both cutting edge facts, and I want to back them up with three expert sources, I need to look online.

Having worked with both student and adult writers, I've learned that though everyone may think they know how to use the internet to research, they are sadly mistaken. So here are a few things to keep in mind when doing research on the internet.

Remember that anyone can post information online. Before you can even say you are researching, you need to be able to identify a valid source online. Many sites out there really look legitimate. A couple things to check: What is the web address? First hand sources are a great start. If you're looking for information about space, go to NASA.gov. Essentially, the government websites put out a lot of facts, that you can generally trust. Students write a lot of information for class projects. They can be interesting to read but be wary of the content - you don't know if their research is correct, or if they plagiarized. Don't go there. Adults to the exact same thing. Make sure you're at a trusted content site.

Make sure the information is cited. And then check the references. It's amazing how often primary sources are misquoted. It's like the old game of telephone. If you alter one fact, the fact becomes muddled or incorrect. Wikipedia is famous for this. Don't get me wrong - I read articles on Wikipedia. But anyone can post or alter the information in the articles. I use Wikipedia as a starting point for topic overviews. And then I check all the facts. I was reading today on Wikipedia that 10,000 years ago, China started burning coal for fuel. And then later I read that coal wasn't burned in China until the Han Dynasty. And that sure wasn't 10,000 years ago. So, check your facts.

Remember that even experts disagree. So when gathering facts, try to find concurrence with at least 3 experts. I have found that when looking for accurate definitions, different divisions of the same organization may be out of sync. When in doubt, find concurrence with other experts, or contact the experts directly. When sites like NOAA have mistakes on their website, they want to know about it.

Verify the date of your source. If you're looking for current statistics, and your source is 5 years old, chances are, you can find more current statistics. Fortunately, the most current statistics on any topic most likely are already somewhere out there on the internet. Keep searching!

So, when you finally have hard facts in your hands, you've gathered them from a primary source, and you've found concurrence with at least three other experts, how do you turn the facts into a research paper?

Assume that everything online is copyrighted. It's not, but assume it is. It's safer. Kids think that researching online means hitting print. Back away from the print button. When printing, or copying and pasting text from the internet, even for the purpose of taking "notes" it's too easy to add those "notes" into your document. And then you have plagiarism. Even if you modify the words a bit, or the sentence structure - it's not going to be your original work. My advice? Keep a post it note next to your computer. Write down your fact on one side, and the source on the other side. If you're writing so much that you fill up the whole post it note, you're writing too much. Write down facts in bullets. When you get good at paraphrasing facts only, then you can move on to a whole piece of paper. But don't chance it at first.

If you are adding pictures to your writings, don't just copy and paste pictures in. Yes, they are most likely copyrighted as well. There are photos online that have been put in the public domain. Anything on a government website is usually fine (with a photo credit, of course). And there are repositories of photos at places like Wikimedia Commons, freefoto.com, and pdphotos.com. Again, check the rights, though. Some of these photos have usage parameters, and you want to make sure you're in compliance.

The internet has opened up the world of research. But if you remember not to believe everything you read, you will be able to differentiate fact from fiction while researching.