I Found It on the Internet
Teaching Students to
Locate, Evaluate, and Cite
Credible Online Sources
Dennis G. Jerz
Monday, Jan. 28, 2002
www.uwec.edu/jerzdg
Illustration: The Internet
Procrastinating Student
The Internet at 4am
Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam”, Sistine Chapel
http://www.kfki.hu/~arthp/art/m/michelan/3sistina/1genesis/6adam/06_3ce6a.jpg
Some instructors feel this way instead…
It Came from
the Internet!
SEE!
Factual errors and commercial plugs…
Garish colors and blinking text…
Anonymous, undated, biased claims…
HEAR!
Cheesy background music… An infinite
number of monkeys at their keyboards…
WATCH!
The destruction of objectivity, reflection,
and independent thought.
WRITHE!
As all that is true and accurate falls before
all that is searchable and downloadable.
Adapted from It Came from Outer Space , Universal Pictures
(Overview)
Teaching students to…
Locate
Evaluate
Cite
Credible Online Sources
What is an online source?
• www.time.com ?
• www.amazon.com -- online chapter of a McIntyre book?
• A Personal Website
– …with a long passage pasted from a news story?
– …with an original, eyewitness account of a recent
event?
• A government document found at the Library of Congress
website?
• An academic article accessed via the McIntyre Library
website?
Locating Online Sources
• www.google.com
• www.uwec.edu/Library/researchmap.html
• www.uwec.edu/Library/resources.html
– Encyclopedia Britannica
– Oxford English Dictionary
•
•
•
•
www.uwec.edu/Library/Guides/subject.html
www.uwec.edu/Library/coremore
www.firstmonday.org
www.gamestudies.org
Evaluating Online Sources
• www.uwec.edu/jerzdg/orr/articles/research/
• www.uwec.edu/Library/Guides/tencs.html
Citing Online Sources
• www.uwec.edu/Library/Guides/citation.html
• www.mla.org
• MLA BibBuilder
www.uwec.edu/jerzdg/orr/articles/research/bib/
• APA Style
www.apastyle.org/elecref.html
– “Direct readers as closely as possible to the information
being cited; whenever possible, reference specific
documents rather than home or menu pages.”
– “Provide addresses that work.”
Problems Finding URLs?
•
•
•
•
www.usatoday.com
www.leadertelegram.com/local_news1.htm
www.mla.org
www.mla.org/www_mla_org/style/style_main.asp?level=2&m
ode=page&page=1&link=sty72800121438&section=sty51800
124510
• www.uwec.edu/jerzdg/orr/articles/research/framedURLs.htm
• Always keep printouts.
• Real researchers want their work to be easily cited. If you
can’t find the URL, find a better source.
• As a last resort, attach the printout and cite it.
Why Bother to Cite?
• It’s arcane, meaningless busywork designed to
keep me from getting the “A” my tuition paid for.
• To prove that I found the magic number of sources
the assignment called for.
• To prove that I haven’t plagiarized.
• So my instructor can read my sources and check
whether I applied them correctly.
• To model the methods of academic inquiry.
Academic Inquiry (for newbies)
• Seeking “Truth” by comparing the merits of
differing professional opinions
• Building upon existing, trusted scholarship
• Not trying to “win” a battle or make friends.
– “I am right.” Or, “My wonderful professor is right.”
– Anyone who thinks otherwise is stupid, superstitious,
racist, sexist, a terrorist, unfeeling, etc.
• Complex, rather than simplistic theses.
• “Slavery was bad.” vs. “Alex Haley’s plagiarism and
historical inaccuracies in Roots damaged the integrity of
the civil rights movement.”
Credible Sources
• Author & Date of Publication?
– Hacking the URL
– www.uwec.edu/jerzdg/ORR/handouts/TW/web/url-hacking.htm
• Context
– www.despair.com/demotivators/frownonthis.html
– http://www.theonion.com/onion3211/acludefends.html
– www.bigredhair.com/boilerplate/
• Design
Design and Credibility
•
•
•
•
 Professional Design
 Little or No Design
 Flashy, “Cool” Design
 Amateur Design
–
–
–
–
Background sounds & images
Garish colors & multicolored text
Poor or nonexistent navigation
Large text
Credibility and Human Nature
• Paradox of the Active User
– The belief that you will save time by ignoring
the instructions.
– Asking for directions vs. driving when lost
• Foraging Behavior
– Survival instinct: conserve resources
– Electrons: path of least resistance
Research & the Napster Generation
• Researchers rarely give their best stuff away for
free on the Internet.
– Researchers save some of their best stuff for books.
– Books and printed articles are, in most fields, more
valuable to the individual researcher’s career.
• The Napster generation wants it for free.
• The Napster generation wants it for free, NOW.
• Too bad librarians don’t work at 4am.
Is Microsoft a Monopoly?
• The Department of Justice vs. Microsoft
• The Department of Justice vs. a software
monopoly
• The Department of Justice vs. the freedom
to innovate
Search for “monopoly” on
www.microsoft.com
Online Journalism
• Foraging behavior brings students to online
journalism websites.
• News & magazine articles are easier to read than
academic papers.
• But the news reports are not experts in the subject
matter (child psychology, international politics,
etc.).
• It’s worse than that!
• (Opportunity for a critical thinking exercise.)
Jupiter Communications
• (Now Jupiter Media Metrix)
• Sells research. Custom research – designed
to make the customer look good.
– I start my own church tonight.
– I sign up my wife and son tomorrow.
– My membership shot up to 300%!
• Jupiter’s fun with statistics:
www.uwec.edu/jerzdg/orr/articles/TW/jup-crit.htm
Surge in Salon Subscribers
• http://news.com.com/2110-1023-820941.html
• www.salon.com/press/releases/2002/01/23/subscri
bers/
• http://www.salon.com/press/fact/index.html
• www.dotcomscoop.com/article.php?sid=156&mo
de=thread&order=0
Credible Online Sources
• Be critical of info on a .com website.
• Be critical of info on a .edu website
– Does the URL include a course number?
– Rules for giving conference talks & posting classroom
lecture notes aren’t very stringent; can be inaccurate.
• Be critical of info on a .org website.
– Activist organizations try to get you to think of an issue
in terms that exclude alternative viewpoints:
• Is smoking a matter of public health, or personal freedom?
• Is a tax cut a “welcome return to sensible government” or a
“compassionless strike against the disadvantaged masses”?
– NOW, NRA, PETA, and the ACLU are not ethically
bound to present any point of view but their own.
• Be critical of all information – online or not.
The Horror! The Horror!
• Students may be thinking…
• “How am I supposed to know whether every
article I read online is biased? I’m not an expert!
I have no idea how to confirm every fact!”
• But the answer is…
– Find articles in peer-reviewed journals!
– You know that two or three experts have approved of
the article before publishing it!