The Internet simultaneously makes research easier and more difficult. Internet research is easier than research done in previous decades because people can access enormous amounts of information from virtually anywhere for free after conducting a simple search on a site like Google. The Internet also makes research much more difficult and complicated, however. First is the common misconception that search engines such as Google or Bing find everything there is to know on a topic. Many of the sources you will need to use for college-level research are accessible only through subscription databases, not through Google. Second, more results mean more shuffling through the Web pages to find relevant and credible sources. Third, the order of the search results is determined by the search engine’s secret search formulas that factor in popularity, not credibility, and are often influenced by who pays for their Web pages to be on the top of the list. Finally, search engines search a wide variety of sources, many of which are not appropriate for most college-level research. When you use a database instead, you can easily add filters to ensure that your results include scholarly articles only, and you can clearly see who the authors are. Anybody can put up a Web site, which means you can’t be sure of the Web site owner’s credibility and reliability. The sources found on the Web might be written by anyone: a fifth grader, a distinguished professor, a professional society, or a biased advocate.

A recent Google search on the subject “political corruption,” for instance, generated more than ten million hits. The first page yielded some interesting results:

These varied results demonstrate that you must be alert when examining Internet sources. From this example, we saw that mixed in with credible scholarship and useful links to sources on the topic of political corruption were sales promotions and arguments against gambling. It isn’t always easy to evaluate the quality of Internet sources. Read more about evaluating sources for some helpful strategies that you can use to determine whether a source is credible and authentic..