Annotated Bibliography
Michelle Kuecks
COMP 2000
March 17, 2009

Mahaffy, M. (2006). Encouraging critical thinking in student library research: An application of national standards. College Teaching, 54:4, 324-328.

In this article, the author represents that professors are critical of students who use web-related research as the sole source of information to write papers. Mahaffy takes a different approach at improving the quality of students’ papers by guiding the assignment to exclude web references. His goal is to generate critical thinking as opposed to great web research skills.

Walsh, B. (2008). Stories and their sources: the need for historical thinking in an information age. Teaching History, 133, 4-10.

This article zooms in on the issue of internet research by making a profound statement “But information is not the same as education.” His whole point is that students need to develop critical thinking and that simply plugging in a few words into a search engine short-circuits the educational process. Another important point that Walsh makes is that students like technology because of its social networking appeal, and that teachers must embrace the internet’s magnetism. Finally, the article highlights a Google versus traditional academic journal research assignment that demonstrated a significant omission from the Google research.

Haglund, L. & Olsson, P. (2008). The impact on university libraries of changes in information behavior among academic researchers: a multiple case study. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 34: 1, 52-59, Karolinska Institutet.

Haglund and Olsson’s article reports on the study of researchers at three colleges in Sweden. The aim of the study was to observe research techniques used at the libraries and to measure the extent to which the students utilized librarians. Once observation was completed, the results showed that most students perceived electronic resources provided through the library to be complicated. By contrast, the observations revealed that the research done through Google is easy. In the end, the study pointed out that the library staff needs to present research databases and resources simply, in a user-friendly fashion, and on an individualized basis.

Weiner, S. (2009). The contribution of the library to the reputation of a university. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 35:1, 3-13.

Weiner’s paper sought out to examine the need for university libraries. He posits the existence of a physical library when an increasing amount of research available on the web from remote locations anywhere. His method was to compare the reputations of various universities who had well-funded libraries. According to Weiner, the library enhanced the university’s reputation and perception of academic success as a whole. His methodology was short on credibility because his data was solely limited to peer reputation.

Willoughby, T., Anderson, S., Wood, E., Mueller, J. & Ross, C. (2009). Fast searching for information on the internet to use in a learning context: the impact of domain knowledge. Computers & Education, 52:3, 640-648.

This study sought out to scientifically measure the research process of two control groups who received the same essay assignment. One group had “high domain knowledge”, the other did not. The results of this study pointed out that providing 30 minutes to conduct internet searches did not correlate to a better quality essay. This study raises more questions than it provides answers. Perhaps the most fundamental issue involves the amount of time given to complete research: 30 minutes. If the amount of time to research was greater, the quality of the essay may have been affected more.

Robinson, A. & Schlegl, K. (2005). Student use of the internet for research projects: A problem? Our problem? What can we do about it? Political Science & Politics, 38:2, 311.

The results of a three group student study are revealed in this article pertaining to how scholarly undergrad students conduct internet research. Specifically, the student’s bibliographies were examined and measured for “scholarly” content. While the working definition of “scholarly” internet resources is noticeably absent, the surprising result of this study indicates that 70% of the sources cited by students were “not inappropriate for academic research”.

Laurence, H. & Miller, W. (2000). Academic research on the internt.: Options for scholars and libraries. New York: Hayworth Information Press.

Although a great deal of this book is devoted to the first time internet user, there are some helpful research hints and useful databases that are discussed. Each chapter has a theme and is chock full of databases and websites so that a researcher knows where to go for substantive information.

Hewson, C., Yule, P., Laurent, D. & Vogel, C. (2003). Internet research methods: A practical guide for the social and behavioural sciences. London: Sage Publications.

For the clinical researcher who wants a how-to explanation of how to conduct surveys online to gather empirical data, this book offers significant information. However, the content of the book is limited to methodology of internet survey research and nothing more.

Heil, D. (2005). The internet and student research: teaching critical evaluation skills. Teacher Librarian, 33:2.

This article examines the role of critical evaluation skills to conduct research online sources to write college papers. While the point is well taken that not all internet sites are credible sources of information, one cannot escape the overwhelming insecurity from this librarian-author. Her biggest complaint seems to be that the bookshelves are quiet and the computers loud with activity.

Carlson, S. (2004). Here today, gone tomorrow: Studying how online footnotes vanish. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 50:4, A 33.

Although brief, this article heeds caution to researchers that “the internet is an unstable, fluid medium, unsuitable for the long-term archiving needs of academe”. The point is that by the time the research study is completed, 40 percent of the sources relied upon from the internet have vanished. For researchers, this is a credibility and reliability nightmare.

Hernandez, G. (2004). Find it online: The complete guide to online research. Technical Communication, 51:1, 150-153.

While this article offers tips on how to search the internet efficiently, it is hardly complete and is not particularly “scholarly”. Nevertheless, it describes how to finesse search queries to return relevant information on the internet.

Savolainen, R. (2006). User-defined relevance criteria in web searching. Journal of Documentation, 62:6, 685-691.

This paper presents a very thorough qualitative and quantitative analysis of how people search the web. The conclusion was that people pretty much stick to a narrow list of words to search on the web.

Kleine, M. (1987). What is it we do when we write articles like this one – and how can we get students to join us? The Writing Instructor, 6:Spring/Summer, 151-161.

Written from a professor’s point of view, this article explores much more than a typical research study. The main point that the author conveys is that most libraries (especially on Sunday night) are full of students busy copying, quoting, and in essence borrowing other’s ideas to cite in their paper. He too admits that to an extent he digressed to the same freshman-like habit of copying other’s work and injecting it into the body of a research paper as if there was a sense of ownership. To Kleine, research is about coming up with an idea and giving it one’s own thoughtful perspective, thinking independently, and being passionate during the process. As he reports the findings of the eight professors that he studied, Kleine encourages students to have a sense of self discovery and connection with their research paper.
University of California Los Angeles (2009, January 29). Is Technology Producing A Decline In Critical Thinking And Analysis?. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 20, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2009/01/090128092341.htm

This magazine article reports that critical thinking skills have declined since society has become more dependent on technology. One of the reasons cited for this decline is multitasking through the use of high tech devices such as PDA’s and laptop computers.

Fister, B. (1993). Teaching the rhetorical dimensions of research. Research Strategies, 11:4, 211-219.

Fister points out that when research is conducted through plugging in search queries, the process is reduced to cutting and pasting, and that little thought process is employed. Rather than to be efficient at finding and retrieving information, Fister advocates for librarians to teach student how to interpret research, employ unique perspective to existing ideas, and to construct an individualized experience.

Woodward, J. (1999). Writing research papers: Investigating resources in cyberspace. Lincolnwood, IL: Contemporary Publishing Group.

This book reviews how to determine if a source listed on the web is scholarly and worthy of using in a research paper. It explores how search engines work, how to tell a commercial website from a government-based one, and how to tell who the owner and/or originator of the website. It gives a host of websites and suggests turning to them for various subject queries, but it really overlooks how fluid information is on the web today.

Ballenger, B. (2003). The curious researcher: A guide to writing research papers. New York: Longman.

Ballenger walks a student through, step by step and week by week, through a research assignment. Much of the book is devoted to the importance of time management when completing research assignments. Another area of focus concerns critical thinking: analysis of the hypothesis, on a continuous basis throughout the book. This approach is a little bit elementary, but from an organizational perspective, it guides a first time writer very well.