A key word search can lead straight to an article. Therefore, students need to think about more than just finding information when they use the net. The Internet is not any different from other sources in this respect. The excitement of finding something useful for a paper often overwhelms students, and they forget to look for author and title as well as other important things, like the last time the source was updated. Because it is easy to post information to the Internet as well as find information, the first thing students need to be aware of is how to judge the quality of the site.
Some sites are more reputable than others.
Commercial sites can be good, but this is where many people post personal web pages, and personal web pages need to be scrutinized for bias and accuracy. Students should ask the following questions when researching on the net. For example, suppose I am writing a paper on gun control and decide to research on the web. The article is filled with quotes and statistics and looks like something I should consider using for the paper. In fact, with this article I actually have the author's name, Mark E. Howerter, right up front.