This list of links and sources has been created to help my students build solid thinking and research skills. Use these websites to develop research strategies that can help you produce suitable projects in any of your classes.

Research Strategies

Class Zone's Web Research Guide seems pretty helpful; it offers several tutorials, and an introductory quiz for the totally clueless.

Cornell University Library's Seven Steps of the Research Process. This site provides a straightforward set of guidelines for developing a topic and initiating research through a variety of media, from books to the Internet.

Searching the Internet: Recommended Sites and Search Techniques. The State University of New York at Albany has built what may be the most comprehensive search and evaluation site available. This all-purpose page contains links to search engines, "quick tips" and search strategies, information on searching different kinds of engines at different levels, and links to further information.

Chris Witcombe's guide to researching art history on the internet. Most of the work we do at the Art Institutes involves art in some way. Chris Witcombe is the author of the quintessential links page, Art History Resources on the Web, and this related site offers advice and strategies for conducting research on topics of interest to most of my students.

Important note: Please remember that the World Wide Web is not the only source of information available to you; the librarians in the Kelley Library (with some help from your instructors) have been working diligently to build a substantial collection of print and electronic sources to help you conduct research. I thoroughly recommend that you start in the library first, unless you simply want a quick introduction to an unfamiliar topic. Once you get serious, however, begin with the library and augment what you find there with information from the Internet. When you do search the web, be sure to evaluate your sources using the techniques and criteria recommended in these links.

Evaluating Web Sources

Just as you can't always believe what you see on TV (especially on TLC and The Discovery Channel!), or what you read in print, be wary of what you see on the net, a good percentage of which is absolute crap (pardon the lingo). These sites can help you separate the wheat from the chaff.

Guide to Network Resource Tools. This is a very helpful, professionally created site sponsored by the Trans-European Research and Education Networking Association. It offers a complete and highly readable introduction to using the web, especially for those of us who don't know a GIF from a JPEG.

How to Critically Analyze Information. This site is maintained by Cornell University's library and contains a very thorough list of criteria for evaluating material from the web.

Evaluating Information Found on the Internet. Elizabeth Kirk, Electronic and Distance Education librarian at the Milton S. Eisenhower Library at Johns Hopkins, has put together a useful site that provides an introduction to the problems presented by web-based information, guidelines for evaluating Internet material, some interesting links, and information on citing web sources.

Evaluating Quality on the Net. This article, by Hope Tillman, the Director of Libraries at Babson College (Maryland), not only offers ideas about how to assess information, but essays into the whole idea of internet-based information and associated problems. The essay is rather long, for those with short attention spans, but well worth reading. Even skimming through it for particular kinds of information can be helpful, because she establishes criteria for good web design, discusses search engines, and assesses the current state of web-evaluation tools--among many other topics.

Website Evaluation Worksheet (with guidelines): this is a Word file my students must use to justify including in their bibliographies websites I have not already screened.

Critical Thinking

Strategies for Success: Critical Thinking from the Alamo Community College District includes a very useful list of strategies for reading critically.

Defining Critical Thinking. Critical Thinking.org provides information on the value and nature of critical reasoning, as well as strategies for developing critical thinking skills. This particular page offers a solid argument and rationale for thinking critically, as well as a nice description of what's involved.

Mission Critical. Produced by San Jose State University, this site provides a good introduction to critical thinking, including sections on basic arguments, argument analysis, and common fallacies.

Bad Science: My favorite site for debunking archaeological misinformation, Fantastic Archaeology, is now gone. But if you're ever inclined to be more gullible than I am, or if you ever wonder why I have no patience for the "our ancestors were dummies" view of ancient history, here are a couple of pages: British archaeologist Keith Matthews' page on Fringe or Cult Archaeology offers a good definition of archaeology, and some solid reasoning on what's wrong with cult archaeology, as well as links to specific topics. The Antiquity of Man provides numerous articles, written by credentialed scientists, debunking various theories from fringe archaeology. The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry is the bane of little minds; it tends to be pretty strident in opposition to non-rational behaviour on the part of human beings, but their magazine, The Skeptical Inquirer, does a good job of debunking most nonsense. They offer several articles and tools online.

A really helpful list of stuff to pay attention to: Carl Sagan's Baloney Detection Kit (from his book, The Demon Haunted World)

And in case I haven't included enough links, try this Critical Thinking page.

home
10.14.08