Painkillers for Research

The deadline is fast approaching. The paper that was assigned at the beginning of the semester has been looming overhead, and is about to come crashing down at overwhelming warp speed. Where do you do to find quick, easy and credible research? If you find yourselves slipping into the old habit of using the same search engine or the same hardcopy encyclopedias over and over again, its time to ditch the habit and explore the potentially tantalizing taste that a dollop of this source and a pinch of that media can add to a research paper.

Cathy Michael, communications librarian at Ithaca College, encourages using various resources for research.

“I promote using all types of information," Michaels said. “I hope that students familiarize themselves with all resources after I introduce them."

While the Internet seems like information at your fingertips, browser beware. Much of information online is irrelevant or incorrect.

Alison Dutra, a freshman at the University of Maine, estimates that she spends about 40 percent of her time shifting through irrelevant information online, or finding something relevant that she later discovers is entirely unreliable.

“Sometimes I will find a link from Google and be so stoked because it is the perfect quote or stat," Dutra said. “Then, I’ll find a similar fact in several other places and realize that the online one was totally wrong."