Internet+research

Traditionally in school you are taught that the vast majority of the internet is //unreliable.// As a result, you are discouraged from using many sites that could be incredibly useful, such as wikipedia, ask.com and thousands of blogs and personal websites.

The key with using the internet is being able to judge //what you can use a site for//.

Some sites, such as Britannica online, are academically verified and reliable. Others, such as BFI.org, contain a mixture of such content and interviews, which may be less well researched. The key thing to remember, is that //ALL OF THIS IS JUST SOMEONE'S OPINION//. The rest of the internet is the same, the difference is that some people's opinions may be more valid, more interesting or better justified than others.

In all cases, you must test these opinions by going back to primary material. Decide for yourself if an interpretation is valid. Check for yourself if Arny really says 'I'll be back' in all the //Terminator// films. Use the internet as a way of generating ideas and hypotheses; the evidence to support these should be checked or verified (if the source provides evidence) in primary sources – the films themselves.

If you've gone to the trouble of finding a truly reliable source, such as Britannica, you may be able to get away with less personal verification. You will also find that these sites provide less specific information or opinion and often present multiple perspectives without indicating preference. This limits their use to you, unless you go back to the primary material to make up your own mind. In which case, you might as well have used any source. The difference is that if a reliable source provides you with a useful idea, it is more likely that you will find the evidence you need to back it up. Unreliable sources are more likely to lead to dead ends. They are useful because they can be very specific at times (e.g. the Michael Bay-auteur blogs).

Research etiquette:

 * Credit everything you glean from someone else.
 * If you use someone's exact words, surround it by quotation marks.
 * Changing the way something is worded does not mean you don't need to reference.
 * Remember, even if you find the evidence to support an idea yourself, if you found the original idea in someone else's work, reference!