Ask yourself how you are
using the Web. Doing research is
not just looking up stuff in
Google. You should be looking for
something substantial, and as powerful as Google
searches are, they not only don't
distinguish between the good and the bad, mix in fake news with legitimate sources. Too often Google and its competitors fail to retrieve the best or most important.
- Websites found through Google and other web search engines may not
be appropriate sources for academic research and
other school work.
- It may be better to start using databases found at a library website
-- and it may even save you time.
- Provocateurs, foreign and domestic, spreading conspiracy theories and trying to polarize people with disinformation work hard to pump up their websites to appear high on Google search lists.
Don't expect to find everything you will need on the Web, because not
everything is available on the Web. Let me repeat: Not everything is available on the Web.
- Because of copyright, cost, and demand issues (to name only
a few reasons), some materials just won't be found on the Web.
- Although some really old
stuff
does show up on the Web, a host of materials written before you were
born have not migrated to the Web and might not ever.
- Often the most valuable resources for
research are only available if you or someone else (such as a school or
library) has paid for access to it.
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