The Web Is a Great Place to Begin Research

As a college student, you'll be researching for and writing a lot of papers during your years in school. While most professors will instruct you, and quite rightly so, not to use the internet as a source in these papers, the web does provide some tools that can make doing your research a whole lot easier and productive and could help you score that 'A' you desire. Your success in using the web as a research tool will depend largely on knowing how to use it intelligently and when to switch to getting information from more direct and reliable sources.

These days, much of the useful information you would find in your college's library is archived in online databases. This means that by using the web, you can save yourself a good amount of time and find articles from academic journals and publications. Your school's library should have access to large databases like J-Stor, ProQuest and EBSCO (among many others) that can help you find articles from a variety of decades and on a wide range of topics. This is an excellent place to start your research.

If you don't want to go through your library's databases, you can always turn to a search engine like Google Scholar for help. Working much like Google, the site is easy to navigate and will only deliver search results that would be appropriate for use in an academic paper. You can also hook your searches up with your school library to easily find books, articles and other materials that will enrich your paper.

While Wikipedia is more reliable than many seem to believe, it still isn't good enough to be counted as a source for a paper. (Never use Wikipedia as a primary source for your paper unless you want to face the wrath of your professor or teaching assistant.) What it can help you with as a student is pointing you in the direction of resources and ideas that can help you fully develop your ideas and your research. If a Wikipedia article is any good, it will cite sources and you can use those sources, so long as they are from reliable authors, to start doing the real work of writing your paper. Additionally, many articles on Wikipedia will link you to related topics, something that can help you better understand and ultimately write about your topic.

The web gets a bit of a bad rap when it comes to research on a academic level, but the reality is that when used correctly, the web can be an incredibly valuable asset and can help you write a well-researched and intelligent paper on just about any topic out there.