how is conducting research online different from conducting research in a traditional library?

Question

What is your overall stategy for conducting academic web searches?

Answer 1

If you're in college or at a university you should have been given access to sites where you can search through academic journals. That is the number one way to search online. You may have to go to their library to use the service though. (The school pays the membership fee to the academic search companies and you have access as long as you're a student.)

The second best method would be to do a search on your topic, and then pick out the websites that are published by respectable agencies. For example if I were looking for information on heart disease I would go to the American Heart Association's website. Then I look through all those sites and find the information I need, and they usually have links to other respectable websites. If you notice one particular author is mentioned more than others you can do a search of that author's name.

Also check your local library. They may have special access to certain search engines, too.

I hope this helps.

Answer 2

You get a larger sample from online research but you never really can be sure if its truly accurate. Getting research from a library is much more limited but atleast you know if your information is accurate or false. As for my personal strategy in conducting web searches I just google what Im looking for. Simple. Read through things very carefully and look for credentials that can be verified. Im not on the computer much and dont do alot of research.Hell, I didnt even finish high school! :( But if I were doing a research project I would definately make sure to read through a large variety on the subject and to make sure the information I was presenting was verified by credentials and known facts n' stuff :)

Answer 3

If you are doing the research online, you need to make sure that the articles you are finding are credible. One way to do this is to search for journal articles. If you use ERIC, you will probably find a lot of credible sources.

Answer 4

When researching online, I trry to screen the sites carefully. Most unis will give you a list of databases that relate to your field of inquiry. Stick with those sites that have . edu or .gov or. org in the suffix.

Many of the best online resources reference hard copy in their presentation.

Online versions/editions of peer-reviewed journals are also a great resource.

http://www.slu.edu/departments/english/research/


And try Google Scholar, it's pretty user friendly as well

Answer 5

There is absolutely no guarantee of accuracy anywhere on the internet.

You are drawing from an arguably larger pool of data.

It is much easier to cross-reference