"Straight from Google to My Research Paper"

I enjoy the convenience of an Internet search over a scavenger hunt through a library's stacks as much as the next guy. But when I'm looking for reliable information--perhaps when writing a paper for college--I know what to look for via the Internet in terms of credible sources (usually electronic versions of articles from academic journals in print).

I avoid using sites as reference sources that seem to be maintained by Joe Schmoes sitting in their dark basements making stuff up while scratching themselves amidst piles of moldy pizza boxes and empty, plastic pop bottles. (You're wondering, "How can he tell all that while sitting at his own computer?!")

And sometimes I need an actual, physical, three-dimensional book; the Web doesn't always satisfy my needs. Few of my students, however, would consider checking out a book as part of conducting research for a paper or other project. "As Lorie Roth, assistant vice chancellor of academic programs at California State University[,] puts it: 'Every single one that comes through the door thinks that if you just go to Google and get some hits — you've got material for your research paper right there.'"

And some of my students are not so discerning when it comes to finding and using Internet sites during their own "research." They use whatever sites appear on the first page of results from a run of an Internet search engine without checking them for validity, reliability, credibility, etc.

But now, colleges and national testing services are working together to do something about this situation! If technology is going to be a part of our lives and our sources of knowledge for academic work, then at least we should know how to evaluate the "knowledge" that technology purports to offer us, right? Read the article that is the source of the Roth quotation above.