Students' zone - How can I make the best of the internet for my studies?

Thirty years ago, all the material a student studied came from a library and was published either in a book or in an academic journal. Books and academic journals are written by experts, and they are checked by other experts before they are published, so that you have some sort of guarantee that the contents are reliable and intelligent.

Material on the internet is very different. Some sites are as carefully vetted as books and journals, and as reliable – but many are not. You need to be a great deal more cautious and critical when taking material from the internet than when taking it from a book or academic journal in your University library.

It is not always clear just how reputable a website is. Google any topic and you’ll get hundreds, perhaps thousands, maybe millions of ‘hits’ - and what comes top isn’t the site with the most reliable information – it’s just the site with the most ‘hits’: which may be reliable, or may be rubbish.

Use the internet! Not to do so would be as absurd as a scholar 1000 years ago refusing to use a library! The internet is simply the best library in the world: It contains (or shortly will contain) everything. It’s the most amazing resource we’ve ever had – a source of tutorials on skills, of information at your fingertips richer than any previous generation could have imagined. But to use this resource you will need a cunning and a caution which no library user 1000 years ago even imagined. You will need far more critical skill than our ancestors did. They approached a library in awe and respect. You must approach the library of the internet with intelligent scepticism.

Tips for making the most of the internet:

• Ask: who endorses this site? A respectable institution such as a University or a reputable publisher? An unknown individual or agency?

• What’s the calibre of argument: something defendable as a critical opinion? Or not?

• If it’s not from an obviously trustworthy source – be suspicious. If it’s not from a trustworthy source and the argument doesn’t make sense, doesn’t amount to a critical opinion – be more than suspicious - be very, very sceptical.

• But keep an open mind! Gallileo wasn’t exactly in the mainstream with his ideas – and nor was Darwin. But their ideas stood up to critical appraisal and won the day (eventually)

• If you come across an interesting idea from an unknown source – cross-check it with more reputable sources – for example, by looking for research endorsing those ideas in respectable academic journals – perhaps through a psycinfo search?

There are many very reputable and very useful websites on the internet, for example:

• Psycinfo where you can search for research articles on every subject, across a very wide range of books and journals, and download the abstract (summary) of the article – or, in some cases, the whole article.
o You can pay to use psycinfo as a private individual (about $12 for 24 hours’ use for a websearch; or $15 to download a full article), or your library or department may provide all this free.

• Many academic journals are now available on the internet – and many offer complete articles free.

• The British Psychological Society provides a regular and very readable summary of interesting new research. You can subscribe (free) and have this sent to your email, or read the blog - see http://www.bps.org.uk/publications/rd/rd_home.cfm

• Many universities also provide very reputable websites where they list their faculty and the faculty describe their research