Student Survival Guide for Distance Learning Success

Finding Credible Research Sources

Research will be a major part of my university courses, so it will be important for me to know how to effectively search for material that is appropriate and accurate — not simply a blogger's opinions. The Internet, for better and worse, offers millions of responses to any information request. The first step is contacting the reference department at my university and tapping into the resources available through the library. Many electronic databases can be accessed off campus, and librarians can offer additional suggestions, such as limiting searches to peer-reviewed academic articles. This approach also reduces the risk of relying on unreliable sources.

Any in-depth study program, however, requires an integration of Internet and in-library research. Rita Vine, like many other researchers, warns about over-reliance on search engines such as Google. Instead, she advises: "Start with smart sources." Librarians recommend beginning with sites hosted by reputable organizations, such as academic or public institutions. For example, the National Institutes of Health-sponsored MedlinePlus provides links to recent news, general overviews, and clinical data from various U.S. health agencies.

While search engines cannot be avoided entirely, there are strategies for using them more effectively. Using a variety of search tools helps researchers find more, better, and different information more quickly. Although search engines overlap in coverage, they do not all index identical content. High-quality, filtered directories are also useful for resource discovery. The "Librarians' Index to the Internet" (www.lii.org), for example, is an excellent site offering over 10,000 librarian-selected links.

Additional tips include: if a resource is a directory rather than a search engine, browse it rather than searching it — the extra clicks are worth the more relevant results. Be cautious of sites with many advertisements, as pay-for-placement is common. When using search engines, adding qualifier words such as "resources," "links," or "directory" can bring curated lists to the top of results. Using advanced search features to limit results to domains ending in .gov (U.S. government) or .edu (U.S. colleges and universities) also improves source reliability.

Citing References and Avoiding Plagiarism

It is easy to take notes and forget to record the source, or to find a website, copy the information, and neglect to note the URL and other vital details. This practice is unacceptable in research papers. Plagiarism is not only academically dishonest — it is also illegal. University academic integrity policies typically stipulate that "plagiarism, cheating, and other forms of academic dishonesty constitute a serious violation of university conduct regulations," and that students who engage in dishonesty in any form will be charged accordingly.

Plagiarism occurs in the following circumstances:

1) One quotes another person's actual words or replicates all or part of another's work without acknowledgment — this includes all information gathered from any source, including the Internet; 2) one uses another person's ideas, opinions, work, data, or theories, even if completely paraphrased in one's own words, without acknowledgment; 3) one uses facts, statistics, or other illustrative materials without acknowledgment; 4) one fails to acknowledge with a citation any close or extended paraphrasing of another's work; and 5) one fails to use quotation marks when quoting directly from another source, whether a few words, a sentence, or a full paragraph.

The university also provides guidance on how to cite resources properly, add bibliographies, and meet other documentation requirements. Developing the habit of recording source information at the moment of gathering it — rather than trying to reconstruct it later — is one of the most practical steps a student can take.