The purpose of this guide is to help you increase your fluency in using the Internet as a sociological tool. Fluency means the ability to use the Internet for researching sociology issues, as well as the ability to evaluate Internet information from a sociological perspective. The critical thinking and research skills required by the Internet are different than those required from a trip to your campus library. The focus of this guide will be on how to access information, how to manage large amounts of diverse information, and how to evaluate the quality of that information. You should be able not only to use the Internet effectively, but also be able to evaluate the impact of the Internet, not just on your academic projects, but also on society.

By now, most of you are aware of the vast quantity of information that is "out there" on the Internet. In fact, finding information on a particular topic is seldom a problem faced by most students. The problem is more one of assessing the quality of information and managing the truckload of resources that emerge. How do you go about sorting through the plethora of information, for example, that a search on "domestic violence" would locate? When do you know to say "enough!" and begin to organize and think about the material you have? What are the criteria for evaluating whether the information you found is factual and accurate or whether it is opinion-based? Whether based on empirical evidence or on opinion, how do you go about identifying the social or critical biases inherent in what you have collected? This guide will talk about these issues, and provide you with exercises to learn to identify some of the pitfalls and benefits of Internet research.

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Electronic information and academic research: Partnership pains

The Internet is a profoundly democratic entity. Sites can be placed on the Web by just about anyone, with just about any political motivation or social bias. Determining the authority of the author and the reliability of the information can be tricky. For example, marketing and advertising have become insinuated almost seamlessly into sites with objective information, oftentimes blurring the distinction between promotional and factual information.

Outstanding examples of these new marketing techniques are online bookstores such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble. These sites provide search engines for bibliographic citations to locate and order books, and you can also read book reviews and look for articles elsewhere on your topic once you have completed the search through the commercial site. Again, however-in the democratic style of the Internet-the reviews of books can be written by just about anyone, with just about any motivation, and the bibliographic referencing is geared to commercially available resources.

Print publishing runs a continuum from superfluous to quite scholarly. As a reader, you have developed techniques for evaluating most hard-copy material you come across. The context of the information provides good clues. For example, your general understanding of what the magazine is about would guide you to read an article on teen pregnancy in Hustler magazine with a different focus on content than you would read an article on teen pregnancy in Annual Review of Sociology.

The contextual clues on the Internet can be very different than those in print publishing. It is your responsibility to be critically vigilant with everything you read-especially with what you find on the Internet.

Something presented as fact on the Internet could lead to wrong choices or even choices that result in harm to personal health if those "facts" are not critically challenged. Careful writing can camouflage motivation for those readers inclined to believe what they read if it sounds "reasonable." You can be led far down the primrose path before even considering to critically challenge the material if you are not cautious.

History: From databases to Web sites

The growth of the Internet in 30 years has astounded even the most computer-savvy. It was begun in the early 1960s by the US Department of Defense's Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA) as a way to link military command and control communication. By 1982 ARPANET had grown to over 200 hosts, and the term "Internet" was used for the first time to describe.

The introduction of personal computers and mini super-computers in the early 1980s marked a shift in Internet use from military-dominated to a system dominated by private corporations and their customers. Concern about who would have access to the incredible potential of the Internet was growing in universities and academic think-tanks across the nation, however. In 1986, Case Western Reserve University in Ohio addressed these concerns by creating the Society for Public Access Computing, and developed the first "Freenet" host([http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/cyberspace/july-dec03/unwired_10-16.html]). It is the insight of those early "techies," who had the vision to see they held a tiger by the tail, which has shaped the Internet of today as a democratic, unstructured, accessible, and highly public resource.

At the turn of this century-roughly 30 years after computer-based networked communication was conceived-well beyond one million Internet hosts provide consumers with products and entertainment resulting in the exchange of over one billion dollars annually.

In developed nations, the proliferation of Internet is bolstered by millennial enthusiasm and bright hopes for economic opportunities built on "Internet Culture." "Net-Careers" and "e-business opportunities" not even dreamed of a decade ago have become highly sought after by college graduates and junior high computer junkies alike. Fortunes have been made, and an entirely new sociodemographic category of twenty-something millionaires has emerged as the world of high technology has sped forward.

The Information Age arrived with a vengeance. It didn't tiptoe in with a carefully planned and well-organized structure. It mushroomed in disorganized clusters, bringing with it an ethos of free speech and public access, and insistence on the supremacy of the creative process. From early on, those who defined the language of the new Information Age have been the users and shapers of the tools, not academic or corporate analysts of some process.

Many of the users and shapers of the current Internet culture have a vested interest in showing how this new medium can create economic opportunity and democratically oriented social change. However, as with any emerging technology, the potentially negative impact of side-effects which may not necessarily be evident must also be considered. What are the social costs of electronic capitalism? Can we build safeguards into our virtual lives that will ensure our privacy? Can we find virtual safeguards for our privacy as well as the quality of life we desire for ourselves individually, at work and in the family? Will lasting opportunities be created for individuals and groups on the fringes of our political and economic life, or, will they eventually be shut out? Will Internet culture help grow a new middle class, or simply lay the groundwork for a new wealthy elite?

These are just some of the many questions we encounter when attempting to filter through the electronic information overload. It is in this world of virtual information, organized by concept rather than in the linear pattern we are trained to think in, that the material of the Information Age exists. Play with the exercises in this guide; learn all that you can about connecting, communicating, sorting, sifting, and always critically analyzing the material available to you through the power of the Internet.

Connecting Virtually: Social Research

In this guide, we assume you are already familiar with basic usage skills on the Internet. But what if you've been too busy, or too broke, to get on board? Most colleges and universities, as well as an increasing number of community colleges, offer Internet accounts, including email, as well as training and support through their computing resources centers. If you are Internet initiate, this should be your first stop. If you don't have your own personal computer, find out what kinds of resources exist at your school's computer lab. Internet access is also provided free at many public libraries, as well as through an increasing number of "Internet Cafes."

The Web sites below can help you overcome economic and educational boundaries concerning access and use of the Internet. Knowing how to use this tool is of absolute importance to your future-don't let anything stop you!

Free Web pages-Geocities
Companies like Geocities are providing free Web site hosting and tools for creating Web sites that anyone can easily learn.

Free Internet Access
Some commercial Internet providers, such as AOL, provide introductory packages with free limited access. But did you know that many access providers are now supplying completely free online access? The directory above provides a good starting point for learning more about free access providers.

Free Email
Yahoo's Free Email directory is the best place to start when choosing your free email account. Once it is provided, you can use email for free directly through your internet browser.

Exercise 1

Because the language of the Internet is evolving even as we speak, you will come up against numerous terms or uses of the language that are mystifying or confusing. Everyone else seems to understand what they mean: why don't I? Or worse yet, explanations themselves cannot be understood because the words and phrases are used as completely new concepts.

You will want to create your own glossary of terms to help you speak the language of the Internet. Throughout this guide numerous terms are highlighted in bold. Beginning with these terms, and moving on to others that you run into in your Internet searches, define their meanings, and put the words into your personalized glossary.

Resources on Internet and computer language are available online. Begin with these:

http://www.pbs.org/speak/words/sezwho/wiredwords/

http://www.pbs.org/speak/words/sezwho/cyberspace/

Exercise 2

The process of making sense of the information on Internet sites can be compared to asking a series of people for advice.

Let's say that for very personal reasons you have asked six friends for their advice or comments about reproductive choice. You understand that each person is coming from a perspective unique to his or her own values, and that you hear what friends have to say through their lens, or perspective on the world, as well as through your own. You probably are able to sort through a mental list of which friends to ask in the first place-not because some friends are "better" than others, but because you have a general sense of where people are coming from. Different perspectives will be useful to you in sorting out your own ideas.

Now turn to another set of voices, or "lenses," that you locate on the Internet. This is a time for you to critically evaluate the content of the sites you locate in order to help you make personal sense of an important issue. Obviously, the cues you have by talking in real time with real people will not be available to you on the Internet.

What resources do you bring to sort through the information you find? Are you able to identify the underlying values of each site? What is the process you go through as you sort through information? Do you find that you are more drawn to information that agrees with your own values? Are you more-or less-attracted to a site by the visuals presented? What makes you feel that you are getting "good" information at any given site?

Develop a list of several items that catch your attention when you are critically determining the "lens," or perspective, of a given site. Begin your search by using the following site, then locate at least three other sites that provide a range of perspectives on the subjects they address:

http://www.prolifeaction.org/

Exercise 3

Use the key search word "bookstores" and explore some of the book marketing sites available.

Which of the sites have actual search engines, rather than indexed categories? What are the parameters of those search engines-that is, how sophisticated a search are you able to complete using the engine? Search by title/author alone? Also by topic? What is the depth of the literature the site carries?

Are you able to determine an ideological or intellectual perspective in the books carried by the company? What is the balance between linguistic content (words) and visual content (pictures) on the site?

Exercise 4

The history of the Internet is short and it will be changing enormously in the next decade. You have the privilege of being on the cutting edge of the Information Age, and are therefore in the unique historical position to experience a revolution with consciousness. Imagine the stories you will be able to tell your grandchildren!

Develop an Internet timeline of your own, including your personal process along with the historical developments of the technology. For historical reviews, begin using the following sites:

Internet History
Internet History is the first narrative of its type that has the potential to write itself! The Internet Historical Society Web site above is a great starting point for learning more about Internet history.

The following are also good sites on Internet history:

http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml

http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/FAQ.html

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Formal uses of the Internet

There are many ways to accomplish the same objective on the Internet. Its organization-or lack thereof-is exactly what makes it most appealing for hard-core users. Rather than a tidy hierarchy of search terms linked together through a conceptual logic, like the Dewey Decimal System you learned in grade school, topics on the Internet can be accessed through multiple paths. The topic being researched is much like the center of a spider's web, containing many connectors coming from many different directions.

Let's say that you are interested in locating information on sexual discrimination on college campuses. One possible set of resources will be on home pages and in chat rooms, where people display their point of view, or can exchange information about the topic. What you find might be from the personal experience of someone who has been the victim of sexual discrimination, as well as those who may be accused of it. Individuals sometimes exchange email addresses through their contact in chat rooms around a topic, so you might end up having a series of personal communications with someone who has experienced just what you are thinking about exploring.

It is usually clear in chat rooms or on home pages that an individual is speaking about his or her own experience, much as if you were talking to different people about the topic. It is relatively easy, therefore, to keep the information in perspective. You are relating to the individual as just another person with something to say. Occasionally someone identifies him- or herself as an authority on the topic (which may or may not be accurate), or sounds so much like you that you identify with their perspective and forget that this is just someone whom you have not met and with whom you exchange written notes. But generally, the idea that one person's opinion or judgment is not necessarily more valid than another's is not difficult to hold onto in a chat room discussion. Home pages and chat rooms can be important sources of information exchange, and can be very useful to you in your search for information.

Informal discussions of the topic might be a first place to look, but eventually you will need more information. A second grouping of resources might be through government agencies dealing with sexual discrimination. A third set of resources might be legal decisions and documents, including historical information about sexual discrimination. Each of these different "sets" represents a completely different way of coming at the topic, and each can give a very different perspective. In your search, you will probably come upon a mega-site that contains links to many other Internet locations on the same topic. These sites can be extremely useful resources in your search, because each link is likely to have its own links to resources, thereby widely expanding your sources of information.

Internet sources differ in levels of reliability where use of factual information is concerned. Some sources, such as the US Bureau of the Census, are considered "trustworthy" sources. Other sources, such as chat rooms or personal home pages, may contain information that is based in part on belief, ideology, or unsubstantiated fact. Web sites produced on behalf of authorities such as multinational corporations, legal firms, health care businesses, and political organizations, typically blend beliefs concerning issues with fact. In essence, it is necessary for you to be a critic of views presented in any given resource, no matter how reliable it may appear.

Personal uses of the Internet

Let's say that rather than seeking information about sexual discrimination, you have just learned that your close friend or relative has what is called Gulf War Syndrome, and he is deeply depressed. You are going to the Internet for any information you can find about this problem, as well as anything available on the impact of war on soldiers. The stakes-especially the felt need for immediacy-have risen enormously in this search. Because of your emotional vulnerability, your radar for accuracy or depth of analysis might be off. What are some of the sources you will look for, and how will you know when to stop looking in one resource "set" and move to another?

On the topic of gulf war syndrome, the range of information will come from personal communications, chat rooms, on line newsletters and other publications, government documents, national and international organizations, religious associations, state and local statistics, health and human welfare agencies, medical journals, and especially in the form of infomercials.

Infomercials are advertisements designed to appear to be authoritative articles, often including scientific studies with statistical analyses, and conclusions. The intent of the infomercial, however, is usually used to sell a product. Occasionally it is used to sell an idea, modeled after campaign ads that "sell" a candidateInfomercials are very common for sites concerning health and well being, computer hardware and software, and financial investments. Sometimes it takes very careful analysis to determine which site is actually marketing a product and which site is providing information about your topic.

Hope N. Tillman (1998) identified a range of categories of information from vanity sites to very scholarly and specific informational sites, with promotion and marketing infomercials peppered throughout. The writing in vanity sites or home pages and home Web sites has no publisher to provide editorial and standards review, though the pieces might be thoughtfully and well written. Vanity site publishing can be the most difficult of sites to assess: an article included in one site might have been thoughtfully written with accurate data by an expert on the subject. Or it might have been skillfully written by a zealot who made up data to support a point of view. Most vanity site publishing, however, is by an individual who has a working paper-perhaps from thesis research-they choose to share. Nevertheless, once again a critical approach to what you read is important.

Knowing when to stop

Lack of information is usually not an issue on the Internet. More generally, students become overwhelmed with the broad and seemingly endless range of information available. If you keep a log of the resource "sets" you have accessed-vanity sites; US government agency sites; perhaps sites of professional organizations related to your topic; and sites of organizations and associations interested in your topic-you will begin to recognize the balance of your search.

Include in your log

• The author, title, type of medium, URL address, and date you accessed the work
• Category of the resource (popular? government? chat room?, etc.)
• Ease of determining whether the site matched your needs
• Ease of identifying the author or creator of the site
• Authority of author or creator
• Comparability to related sources
• The last update on the site
• Personal notation for your future reference

When you have gathered both "official" and "unofficial" information, made necessary contacts for on-going information gathering, and begun to see the same sites referenced again and again-you are probably ready to stop looking for the present. You need to remember that information on the Net can change daily, and referring to your log so you can revisit the better sites is a good plan.

Connecting Virtually: Evaluating the material

Debate rages at even the most authoritative Web sites on the reliability of the information accessed through the Internet.. The US Bureau of the Census, for example, has been criticized for providing skewed demographics of minorities and "blended" people. These numbers make a difference: budgeting for social policy, for example, assumes an accurate census even though it is common knowledge that minorities are grossly underrepresented.

The uses of people without their consent for tests on radiation exposure by the Department of Energy (DOE), as well as the National Institutes of Health syphilis tests from the 1930s, are examples of "authoritative" information of highly questionable, if not downright unethical, sources. Reliable Web sites need to be evaluated for ethical considerations as well as for underlying logical fallacies.

An outstanding summary of fallacies in logical thinking (Downes, 1996) is available at http://datanation.com/fallacies/welcome.htm. According to Stephen Downes, site author, "The point of an argument is to give reasons in support of some conclusion. An argument commits a fallacy when the reasons offered do not, in fact, support the conclusion." Fallacies might be subtle or not-so-subtle ways of "winning" an argument, or they might be inherent in the presentation of the material.

We might add the caution that conclusions are drawn from visually presented material as well as from rhetorical (written) material. Though the multimedia nature of the Internet is still in its infancy, imagine the shift in implication that might be made by hearing a political speech with creepy or anxiety-producing music in the background, or with a distinctive interpretation made by the reader's inflection.

Exercise 1

The following Web sites provide information about research ethics. Provide an analysis of their content, using Downes' fallacies in logical thinking categories (referenced above).

Human Radiation Experiments (DOE)

Tuskeegee Study

Exercise 2

Locate the Sierra Club Web site. Using categories provided in Downes' Web site referenced above, see if you can identify the nature of Sierra Club bias. Now return to two previously-cited Web sites, and identify the nature of the arguments presented at each of these sites.

Abortion Perspectives

Preventing and Ending Pregnancy

What similarities do you find in the sites? What are their primary differences? Which of the categories of logical fallacies do you believe apply to each of these Web sites? Which Web site are you most likely to believe? Why?

Exercise 3

Update your personal glossary.

References

Downes, S. (1996). Stephen's guide to the logical fallacies [Online]. Available: http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/welcome.htm [1999, May 29].

Tillman, H. N. (1998). Evaluating Quality on the Net [Online]. Available: http://www.hopetillman.com/findqual.html [1999, May 20].

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III. Tools for the Electronic Partnership

The World Wide Web is the huge collection of hundreds of thousands of computers that make up part of the Internet. Like the Internet, the Web has no central management system-it is unstructured and unorganized and gloriously uncategorical in nature. How then can it be of any use to anyone? Several wonderful inventions have come about to address just this.

Your browser is a piece of software that transfers files from HTML (the language of the Web) into text form or images that you can read and see. Microsoft Explorer and Netscape are examples of browser software. It is through use of your browser that you have access to the various resources on the Web, located at Web sites. Web sites might be organized and operated by institutions (like your college or university); by government agencies or professional organizations; by individuals, or by groups of people, with something to sell or display, be that ideology or product. Basically, anyone can have a Web site.

Web sites can be easily updated and changed because they are stored electronically. They are therefore dynamic and can be tremendously useful tools in conveying information that changes rapidly, such as the progress of a bill in Congress. They can be dynamic conveyors of changing information, but are not necessarily so. A Web site that is frequently updated means the site manager is actively involved with conveying changing information to site visitors. One way to evaluate the information you are receiving from your resource is the date of the most recent modification, if that information is available and if it is relevant to your search.

Each Web site contains one or more pages that are connected by links. Links are identifiable in one of three ways: (1) an underlined word, usually in color; (2) a graphic with a border around it; and (3) a hot spot, identifiable when the cursor arrow turns into a little hand, but otherwise not visible on the page.

So how do you get to a Web site? How do you return to one that you thought to be particularly useful? It's through the Universal Resource Locator, commonly known as the URL. Rather than reading about the component parts of the URL here, log on and go to the following URL (address) and learn all you need to from this resource:

Understanding and Decoding URLs (Kirk, 1997),

After exploring this site, bookmark the URL so you can return, if your browser has that capability. You may want to copy the URL and paste it into a document along with a brief description of why you are keeping this address. You will be developing a personalized address book that will be very useful to you over time. As you become more familiar with Internet searching, you can delete URLs whose content is no longer of interest to you, and you can add addresses as your interests and experience with the Web change and expand.

A system of universal address codes makes sense, but how do you know which address you want when you are doing a search? A search engine is a program that locates Web sites based on certain criteria-usually organized by topic. Examples of search engines are Altavista, Excite, Google, Lycos-there are many others.

Let's say you are seeking information about types of marriage relationships. By giving the search engine you are working with a set of key terms (your criteria), you will begin to come up with sources (URLs) having to do with those key terms. To some extent different search engines will locate different sources. HotBot search tool site will have a somewhat different focus for its search than, for example, Northern Lights, though there will be overlap. You will find that your search is enhanced when you use more than one search engine to track down information on your topic.

There are different levels of search engine to help you with your search. Engines such as Excite and Lycos have their own directories, and provide links to specific sites based on the criteria you gave. You will probably begin your search using one of these sites. A collection of specialized search engines can be located at http://www.search-engines-search-engine.com/page1.htm.

Meta-resources

Meta-resources exist to help you in your process of refining the range of information you use in your search. Some of these resources include evaluation sites, mega-sites and meta-searches, and research tools. Other terms for these sites that you will encounter in your continuing online adventures will include virtual libraries and Web directories. In building your personal glossary of these terms, remember that each type is not mutually exclusive, and many terms are interchangeable.

Evaluation sites. These sites allow you to search for other sites by category, plus they provide reviews of the sites. One example of evaluation site can be found at Lycos Top 5%, http://point.lycos.com/categories (their evaluation of the best 5% sites in their categories). Internet evaluation is a young discipline that will develop over time. These are good sites to visit. However your experience will continue to be your best guide to the search engines that give you access to the sites best for your particular interests.

Mega-sites. These sites go by many different names, but there are basically two types. One type can be found at research centers, institutions, libraries, government agencies, and other official institutions. These sites typically contain specialized search tools that allow you access to a variety of information including other Web sites, online texts and documents, directories of printed material, data sets, graphics, and multimedia resources. Good examples of these sites include the Library of Congress and the US Bureau of Census.

The next type of mega-site goes by many names, including online directory, virtual library, and meta-resource. These resources are designed to categorize and evaluate other Web sites and additional resources around a given theme or discipline. Examples include The SocioWeb, at http://www.sonic.net/~markbl/socioweb; and the Social Science Information Gateway, at http://www.mhhe.com/socscience/art2/index.htm.

Again, it is important to remember that the best resource you have is your own experience. You get that experience by spending time surfing the Web, but there are surfing lessons out there. Two examples of mega-site tutorial resources are http://www.wcsu.ctstateu.edu/socialsci/socres.html and http://www.coastal.edu/library/papers.html. These provide a structure for you to use in your explorations, as well as links to other mega-sites.

Meta-searches. Some sites perform searches of search engines based on the criteria you provide. Let's say that you are looking for information on ethnicity and intimate relationships, including but not exclusive to marriage. A good site to visit first might be http://www.webcrawler.com/, which will search other search engines to locate sites for you. Another good site is the Argus Clearinghouse at http://www.clearinghouse.net. Many other sites exist, which you may or may not find helpful along the way.

Other resource tools. You are bound to discover a variety of online tools that can be helpful in your investigations. Examples of research tools that may be of use include A Web of Online Dictionaries, located at http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/rbeard/diction.html. Statistical information resources from over 70 government agencies can be found at http://www.fedstats.gov; and a general directory of statistical resources on the Web can be located at http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/statuniv.html. There are many others that you will come upon as you become a more experienced Web researcher.

An interesting meta-resource at http://www.itools.com/research-it.html offers a research page with dictionaries and a translator program in which you can translate a word in any language to any other language, as well as maps, geographical facts, and financial tools. The Library of Congress has a section in which Internet guides, tutorials, and online training courses are referenced.

One truly amazing meta-resource is the Monster Board, http://www.monster.co.uk, which provides an international database of employment opportunities. This site is also interactive-it will scan its resources based on a profile you provide, and notify you by email of new postings. It's worth a visit, even if you are not currently job-hunting.

As you build your vocabulary for using online tools, it is important to remember that your experience is the most important resource you will bring to the endeavor. Systematic use and documentation of what you find is the best possible way to become your own expert.

Virtual Connection: Levels of intimacy

To understand about Web searching, it helps to understand a bit about the World Wide Web itself. For an excellent review about the Web, including its definition and information about its structure, history, weaknesses and strengths, as well as a bibliography, go to http://www.boutell.com/newfaq/.

Go also to http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/FAQ.html for current and historical information formatted as Frequently Asked Questions. By means of links, these two resources will lead you other similar resources if you develop an interest in learning more about the Web.

Exercise 1

Imagine that you are a assigned to help bring out the "youth vote" as a volunteer by a local youth advocate agency. Which Web sites of national agencies exist to help educate young people on the importance of voting? What legislation caused the establishment of these agencies, and when was it enacted? What resources are available for young voters in your own state? Using the terms provided above, how would you categorize these Web sites?

Exercise 2

Let's say that you have been given an assignment to find information about discrimination against Arab and Muslim Americans. Describe the kinds of information you find when typing in the key words "Arab American" in three search engines of your choice. Now use the key words "Arab-American Discrimination" and describe the resources you have found.

Compare the quality of these findings with a similar search at the Social Science Information Gateway. What did the differences in results tell you about the importance of using the tools described above for refining your search?

Exercise 3

Conduct a search of Internet sites that provide strategies for searching the Web. Begin with http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Strategies.html

Exercise 4

Update your personal glossary and your URL address book.

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IV. Defining and Refining the Search

Searching multidisciplinary topics

To have an effective search strategy that will save you time and get better information, you need to understand from the first that most sociological topics have many aspects that will influence your search.

Serious study of sociology will often require you to become familiar with other academic disciplines, such as psychology, economics and political science. Additionally, there are many different subfields directly related to sociology which are the subjects of advanced study and professional careers such as criminal justice, social work and gerontology. Your work as a sociologist on the Internet will therefore require a multi-disciplinary approach, since the data you will use is related to health systems, government agencies and policy, educational networks, legal systems, and many other sources. Because of this, key word or phrase searches alone generally are not sufficient to give you the topic you seek as well as the context of that issue. You will need to go at your topic from multiple directions.

Key word searches will get you started, however-particularly if you use a meta-search engine described in the previous section. But eventually you will need to come at the issue from different perspectives. Family-related issues are a good example of the necessity of this because of the complexity of that social and cultural environment of which the family is part. The trick is to identify the accompanying perspectives and seek resources related to them as well as to the specific topic of your research.

Let's use an example that is not an unlikely possibility if you plan a career in the human services. You work in a non-profit human service agency that helps locate housing for low-income families. The opportunity to apply for a federal grant comes along. You must not only design the service that will address the focus of the funding source, but you must write a competitive proposal for the funding being requested. The proposal must demonstrate that your agency is fiscally competent; that it provides a related existing service; and that it understands the characteristics of the community you serve, the clients you serve, and the state of current research on the issue. You must likewise demonstrate an agency expertise that would qualify you to develop the new program and that would enhance the likelihood of its success. Your first task for helping your agency serve homeless and low-income people, however, is to write a proposal demonstrating that your agency is the best one for the funding.

You will need data on what proportion of the population is low-income, with ethnic and head-of-family breakdowns; catalogs of existing housing stock; as well as statistics on homelessness and housing needs in your community; and information on national and local housing options for low-income families. You will need to demonstrate an understanding of existing legislation on family homelessness and low-income housing and of current research on family homelessness and low-income housing.

The topic you are interested in, remember, is low-income housing. As a search term, it will give you many useful resources that you will organize to make your actual writing a more simple process. The topic "low-income housing," however, is incomplete in and of itself, so you will need to go to some of the background issues related to low-income housing such as population demographics, housing policy, family health among lower incomes, cultural patterns of housing use, and so forth.

This example is not unlike the process of writing a research paper for a class. Indeed, one objective of written research assignments in college is to prepare you for just the scene described above. You have a topic to write about and you conduct Internet research (among other research) to locate the information that forms the substance of your paper. In your paper you develop a perspective or an argument and support it with evidence and documentation from your research.

Many of the practical and theoretic projects which are subjects of sociological study require an interactive approach. To really understand the potential benefits and constraints of your project on individuals, you need to show how the project fits with the larger picture. On line sources related to demographics, governmental policies, and other archives are tools you can use to advance your cause and improve your perspective. Your grant proposal will therefore not be complete if you have not demonstrated that you understand that the lives of real people will be affected by the program you propose.

You will probably want to include some interview information from clients of your agency. Interviews are best conducted in person. The Internet, however, can provide some wonderful resources to help you shape your interview strategy, including guidelines for non-directive interviewing and being aware of your biases in the interview process. It can also provide you with some great information about the use of narrative as a research tool to allow the voice of the person being served to speak for itself. Two sites to check out in this regard are

Qualitative Research on the Internet

Narrative Psychology Research Guide

Using bookmarks

How do you keep yourself organized, and keep the information accessible to you over the course of your proposal (or paper) development?

Being able to return to a Web site easily and without repeating the search process is critical to making adept use of the Internet. You will want to be very familiar with this technique. Most browsers have an icon or button that you can click to easily add an address to your collection of saves. In Internet Explorer it is called Favorites; in Netscape, it is Bookmark. Both Internet Explorer and Netscape provide the option for placing bookmarks inside particular folders.

Let's return to your grant-writing task. You may want a folder on statistics in which you keep URLs for specific pages on federal, state, and local demographics. From the US Census Bureau you might have three or four different pages (sections) bookmarked-on family incomes, housing, ethnic distribution, and homelessness. You may also have found several pages to mark at the http://www.fedstats.gov location to include in this folder.

You will probably want to include in your proposal information on cultural patterns of particular cultural or ethnic groups corresponding to some of the cultural groups in your own community needing low-income housing. You might want to keep the information you locate on cultural and ethnic patterns in a second folder. A third folder might have sites (URLs) with information on housing policy, and perhaps URLs of a couple of sites with model programs similar to the one your agency will propose, and so forth.

Evaluating information

Your Internet research for the project described above will yield sites in a huge range of quality. Most sites have multiple reasons to exist, but it will be clear at some that the primary purpose is to promote opportunities for academic and other professional publishing. These sites will also vary in quality, but generally a Web-published article will be solid if it is written by an academic or professional whose reputation rides on the integrity of the material. Characteristics of "solid" writing include excellent referencing (check it out!) and conclusions that are linked tightly to the argument presented and go no farther than that evidence. An email address or other way to establish communication with the author is generally also available at these sites.

The primary purpose of other sites, you will find, will be to promote something, generally a product or an idea. This kind of site might be written by a sales person...or a zealot...or it might be a testimonial by someone who believes that their quality of life was dramatically changed because of some action or shift in behavior or belief on their own part. Fine, insightful information can be located on a site designed to promote something, but you must remember that the author's level of objectivity makes a major difference in the analysis he or she brings to the material. Analysis becomes your responsibility.

A third type of material you will find on the Net has primarily to do with communicating. The intent of these sites is specifically to toss ideas about, and they provide lots of opportunity for lots of people to put in their two cents' worth on a given topic.

Occasionally there will be one participant who keeps the conversation on track. Because this is virtual and not in-person, you may sometimes only recognize the facilitator role by reading the comments and noting who seems to make it their responsibility to keep the discussion going. That person's comments often validate other opinions, soothe ruffled feathers, and use other leadership techniques. On many sites, the person who is in that role is being paid by someone to keep the discussion going. The employer might the service provider to keep people on line longer; the advertisers whose products can be seen at the site; or an organization that wishes to shape public opinion by leading-and directing-a discussion.

Up-front sites let people know that someone is responsible for keeping the discussion on target. Many sites, however, are not up-front about this, and the direction of discussion can be misleading if the reader is looking for a "take" on the "pulse of online America."

These sites, like promotion sites, can be very useful to the researcher for a sense of different perspectives, but it is also important to remember that only a selected few play the discussion game on the Net. Attitudes, although they may vary wildly, are not necessarily representative of the "larger world" (though it is difficult sometimes to know which "world" is larger).

Some keys to critical analysis of material you read are located at the http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/welcome.htm site on fallacies in logic, referenced previously. Bookmark that site! Downes' categories of fallacies are simple to understand, comprehensive, and provide an excellent guideline to the critical analysis of material. This is very important for students of issues relevant to marriage and family studies because we are taught to be so cognizant and respectful of different perspectives.

An important concept that research on the Internet can help teach you is to be aware of where those different perspectives come from. A paper designed to persuade rather than present balanced information can provide an excellent argument for an important issue. But the reader must be aware that, indeed, that's what is happening in the paper. It is your responsibility.

Connecting Virtually: the Sociological Perspective

As an undergraduate taking an Introduction to Sociology class, you probably have not been required to develop a grant proposal to fund a program. The skills it takes to do so, however, are just the skills you can acquire in your college education: (a) identify the main concept, (b) identify the broader issues in which the concept is embedded, (c) systematically search and organize the information on all the issues and concepts, (d) evaluate your findings, and (e) write the document. The following exercise is designed to help develop your skills in these areas.

Exercise 1

Select one of the six following topics as the focus of your research: (a) telecommuting, (b) the Internet and censorship, (c) the Y2K "Problem," (d) guns and children, (e) women in street gangs (f) "grandparent rights" when parents divorce.

Identify the contextual issues related to the topic you have selected. They will probably be in the areas of health systems, government agencies and policy, educational networks, demographics, and legal systems.

Identify Web sites of reliable authority on your topic. Identify Web sites of potentially marginal authority on your topic.

Identify Web sites related to the issues that provide the background for your topic-that is, the contextual issues.

Exercise 2

Identify the Web sites you located that contain the following potential fallacies: (a) fallacies of distraction; (b) causal fallacies; and (c) fallacies of explanation. Refer to http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/welcome.htm as your resource on these logical fallacies.

Exercise 3

Update your personal glossary.

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V. Internet Integrity: Keeping the partnership honest

Referencing skills

An email was sent to me, among many other people being spammed, by an anonymous source. In the email was an unreferenced quote, which I subsequently copied and put on my office door along with other pithy quotes of possible relevance to student's lives. A colleague stopped and asked about the author of the words. I told the story, and he responded that he was certain he'd heard those words in a country and western song, and that by posting them on my door it appeared that I was taking credit for them.

Wow. I was guilty of plagiarism, and possibly of copyright violation. I was clearly guilty of intellectual theft, and in the academic world of thoughts and ideas intellectual property is a seriously regarded concept. I had deleted the email after writing down the quote, and did not have even the cryptic return address for a reference. I immediately penned into the bottom of the sign "Source: Anonymous email, April 1999," and, unable to locate an author for the words, I have subsequently removed the sign from the collection on my door. It's too bad. The message was neat.

This story describes an incidence of plagiarism that is not at all uncommon, particularly now that so much information comes from the Internet. It is less a matter of the intentional misuse of other people's words than a matter of carelessness, and to some regard, lack of thought about the idea of intellectual property.

Plagiarism concerns educators partially because it is so closely related to learning to think. In referencing someone else's ideas, you must be able to distinguish differences. You learn to read material and analyze ideas with the understanding that they reflect a perspective, not necessarily a great truth. This is an especially necessary skill in sociology and disciplines in which the topic of study is the dynamic human interacting in a dynamic cultural context. It likewise takes skill to write well when the use of others' words and thoughts are being incorporated into your own. That's what many of your college writing assignments are about-learning to reference and acknowledge the work of other people while at the same time developing your own ideas.

Plagiarism is, quite simply, using someone else's words and taking credit for them, either directly or implied, as in the example of the quote I put on my office door. It can be either intentional or unintentional. Either way, it is still plagiarism.

The MLA Guide to Ethical Writing, http://www.ccc.commnet.edu/mla/, contains an excellent set of examples to help you understand the subtleties of appropriate referencing. The examples are particularly useful to distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate use of paraphrasing, quoting, and the re-writing someone else's words.

Many additional resources on writing and plagiarism are available on the Internet, such as http://www.unbc.ca/assets/lsc/handouts/writing/plagiarism.pdf, a University of Northern British Columbia policy document on plagiarism. John Rodgers site on skillful citation, http://www.bcm.edu/immuno/plagcite.htm, speaks more to the need to develop adequate skills of citation than to the idea of intentional theft of others' words.

Other good resources to look at include: http://www.hamilton.edu/academic/Resource/WC/AvoidingPlagiarism.html; http://www.nolo.com/resource.cfm/catID/DAE53B68-7BF5-455A-BC9F3D9C9C1F7513/310/276/.

Each of these sites provides its own point of view on the idea of plagiarism. Some sites address plagiarism and the lack of adequate writing skills, some address carelessness, and some take the approach that most writers are idea-thieves that need to be caught. Different references, different perspectives.

A major concern to writers on the Internet is the protection of copyright. Copyright is a treasured American institution--the very first Copyright Act was signed into law by George Washington in 1790 (Bonnar, 1999). It was designed to protect the intellectual property of the author or initiator of a creative work. Penny Bonnar's fine article "Understanding copyright and its applications to the information age" (1999), gives some basic information about what copyright is and how it is used and misused. The URL is http://www.iigs.org/newsletter/9904news/copyright.htm.en. For a more in-depth review, copyright statutes and judicial opinions and regulations can be located at http://fairuse.stanford.edu. Many other sites on copyright and the Internet are also available.

Accurate and appropriate referencing of Internet material is not always as easy to do as it sounds. If you were to write a book, say, on power and relationship in the family, it would be clear that the contents of that book is yours. The book is copyrighted. When your words are repeated elsewhere, they are referenced back to the source from which they came-your book. Material appearing online, however, might be in the form of an unsigned chat room comment, or some other source so far removed from the original author that it would be improbable if not impossible track the original source. Does that mean the information cannot be used? When we are exposed to the plethora of information in a search process on a particular topic, how do we even remember the source of one factoid-one small piece of information that must be fitted into a larger picture to have any real meaning?

Ethical use of information

Copyright violation is against the law. Plagiarism is counter to ethical standards. Both are theft of intellectual property, and undermine the processes of analyzing ideas, building new concepts, and being ethical, law-abiding citizens.

The very term "downloading" means replicating copies of another person's work. Copyright is "the exclusive right to make and distribute copies of a work" (Bonnar, 1999), and it is a tremendously hot topic given the ability to instantly download entire documents. Clearly someone wrote all of the material that appears online, but the original source is often either insubstantially referenced, or not referenced at all. So if you want to site a source or use part of a document (such as a figure or graphic) in a project you are working on, it might be nearly impossible to locate the original author of that material. To avoid plagiarizing the work, you can site the source from which you take the material, but, as in the opening example of this section, locating the originator of the words-the one holding the copyright, or the right to the copyright-might be nigh impossible. And rest assured that someone's nose will be out of joint if they read something and discover their own words, or figures, or graphics, staring back at them. Not only that: the use of someone else's work as your own is unethical.

In addition to the appropriate acknowledgment of sources, ethical writing means making sure the information you use is not misappropriated through fallacy or false thinking. It is your responsibility to be certain that the factual information you base your assertions on is not misappropriated through ideology, unethical research, or fallacy. Given the ability of the Internet to blend fact with perspective and content with presentation, this responsibility is now more important than ever. For example, some Serbian Web pages are apparently designed to convince Serbs that Serbians were being put to death in camps, not the other way around. Think about it. What resources are available for double-checking the validity of information? Understanding your responsibility to do so in your own work is imperative.

Referencing Web sources

It is very easy to get lost in the Internet maze. For this reason, your Internet browser probably has a history button to help you recreate the steps you took during a Web search. The history feature is there for just the reason described above: you have pulled (or remembered) one piece of information from a 30-minute search of 20 different sites, and now you need the reference. By following the history of the search, you can retrace your steps and probably locate the source of your information. By meticulously recording references for all resources you download or note, you can avoid the need to revisit each site in a search for the material you want to use.

New formats had to develop and be standardized to reference Internet material that address the fluidity of the Net. The following URLs are good resources for you to have at your fingertips whenever you write using material you have gleaned from a Net search. Some of the sites are also useful to you if you plan to publish your written material on the Net, perhaps through a home page established for your class.

Research style guides and online resources

Electronic Sources: APA Style of Citation
http://www.apastyle.org/elecref.html

Elements of style on line
http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing

Ethical Writing: MLA Guide
http://www.ccc.commnet.edu/mla/

Writing for Multimedia
http://home.earthlink.net/~atomic_rom/contents.htm

Yale Web Authoring Style Guide
http://info.med.yale.edu/caim/manual

Netiquette
http://www.albion.com/netiquette
This site talks about acceptable and unacceptable written behaviors online, addressing issues such as flaming, spamming, use of sex language, and jargon.

Learning more: Ethics in action

Exercise 1

Go to http://www.iigs.org/newsletter/9904news/copyright.htm.en and summarize Bonnar's myths of online copyright law. Why is online copyright law such a hot topic for Internet publishers and users? Do you see any copyright issues unique to the Internet? Contrast the information on copyright with information on plagiarism from http://www.ccc.commnet.edu/mla/.

Exercise 2

The following Net sites discuss ethics in published research. Select one of the sites listed below and copy a paragraph that has some meaning to you. Now write your own paragraph in which you utilize the material you have copied. You are developing your own exercise in the appropriate written use of copyrighted material.

Human Radiation Experiments (DOE)
http://tis.eh.doe.gov/ohre

Human Subjects and Research Ethics
http://www.psych.bangor.ac.uk/deptpsych/Ethics/HumanResearch.html

Tuskeegee Study
http://www.gpc.edu/~shale/humanities/composition/assignments/experiment/tuskegee.html

What might be some examples of unethical use of the Internet for gathering information on scientific studies? Locate an example of a Web site which you feel uses information unethically.

Exercise 3

What defines style in writing for the Internet as opposed to paper-based writing?

Using the resources located at http://www.albion.com/netiquette, http://info.med.yale.edu/caim/manual and http://www.ccc.commnet.edu/mla/, how do the ethical dimensions of netiquette, differ from academic writing?

Exercise 4

Update your personal glossary, including the addition of new terms and concepts, and the deletion of words you no longer feel that you need.

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