Computer and Literacy

When it comes to fact finding, people want the most reasonable information they can find. With the wealth of information that is now floating out there on the internet, anyone can get a general idea about any subject and start to input their thoughts, feelings, and emotions into a well-structured, well documented “research paper”. How can someone differentiate from what is truth and what is merely opinionated documents? Well there are several ways that we can filter though what is good information and what is considered bad information. By using proprietary, subscription-based databases, such as JSTOR, EBSCOhost, and ProQuest we can minimize the junk that we do not need when researching materials for a quality research paper. Throughout the paper, the benefits of using such search engines will be discussed and assessed, by using examples to describe the benefits of scholarly resources and popular resources.

So what are the differences between scholarly resources and popular resources? For one, scholarly resources contain well-reasoned, logical fact-based conclusions from educated people. These people are considered to be experts in their field of study. When using scholarly resources to obtain research materials, the user is doing so, armed with the knowledge that the information that they are reading, and perhaps are going to use, was created using strict format for research guidelines and that the article the author has written, has been though a rigorous process of peer review. This is where the author’s work, is read and criticized by other experts in the same field as the author, to either validate or refute the paper by said author. Once the peer review process has been completed, the author’s paper is then returned to him/her with some notes or suggestions that need attention. It is then up to the author to either correct these notes or continue to go on with their original claim.

Popular resources on the other hand, contain information that is...