Doing Internet Research Like It's Your Job (It Sort of Is)

When you're looking for really specific sources for a research paper, the internet might seem like a hopeless maze of teeth-whitening ads and outright lies. This does not have to be the case! We're here to help, which is fortunate, because the internet isn't going to be helpful unless you force it to.

1.) Go beyond Google

Google is great. Cupcakes are also great. Relying solely on Google is like eating only cupcakes, forever, and there are these really delicious pies right next to you, but you never notice them because you're busy stuffing your face with the same old cupcakes.

But look at all of these tasty search-pies! Some of them organize your results in new and intriguing ways; others are just a fresh take on what gets ranked where. Much like everything else, the best resources usually cost money, but the point is that there are tons of other ways to research if you're hitting dead ends.

2.)  Oh no, it's Wikipedia!

Wikipedia is a clever, ambitious experiment in shared human knowledge that occasionally contains jokes about poo. The same accessibility that brings you articles on the most random possible topics also makes Wikipedia a breeding ground for stinky, basement-dwelling vandals who are all "Ha ha, I have replaced the Goethe article with the text of the Kanye West article, this is my life's crowning achievement." And yes, in a way this is hilarious, but it won't be if you paste that thing into a frantic, last-minute paper and wind up implying that Johann Wolfgang von Goethe won twelve Grammys and yelled at Taylor Swift at the VMAs. You will get an F, next to a frowny-face, surrounded by question marks. And this brings us to:

3.) Do not just paste stuff from somewhere because that is horrible

A whole bunch of things count as plagiarism, and there is no excuse for any of them. Okay, there's one excuse, which is that a maddened criminal is holding your family hostage and demanding that you paste his internet source into your research paper. But we'll bet you dollars to donuts that is not happening.

Let's say you wake up ten minutes before school, blinking and confused, in front of your computer. You had planned to finish your paper overnight. The screen says "Here's the thing about Virginia Woolf," and then nothing else. You could just plagiarize the crap out of stuff you find online, but we contend that you would literally be better off concluding "The thing about Virginia Woolf is that I didn't write my paper" and then turning that in. Worst-case scenario, you get an F and then have to beg to write a make-up paper. If you plagiarize, the worst-case scenario is that you get caught, and it goes on your permanent record, and every college tapes a picture of you in the admissions office next to a sign that says DO NOT ADMIT THIS STUDENT. And that would be worse.

How do you research?

Related Post: The Senior Project, aka Your Very Last Assignment