Web Research

Web Research

As technology continues to improve, the Internet grows in importance as a tool for students’ research papers. In David Rothenberg’s article, “How the Web Destroys Student Research Papers,” he said he “noticed a disturbing decline in both the quality of the writing and the originality of the thoughts expressed” when he compared the second semester to the first semester. As a student, I recently did some research of my own. I used primarily the Web to research the School of the Americas (SOA) to learn more about the SOA and arguments presented against it.

On the one side, many people call it the “School of the Assassins” and believe it should be shut down. They see it as an institution that trains South Americans and Hispanics to kill. Many graduates from the school have been involved with some of the worst murders in Latin American history. However, on the other hand, some others believe it is helpful and see it as a good institution. They believe the school is teaching its students how to resolve conflicts. Their response to graduates being involved in heinous crimes is the murderers are merely “a few bad apples” mixed in with hundreds of people improving the Hispanic countries.

As I read through the different web sites and links provided by my searches, I carefully analyzed each one. I compared my research to Rothenberg’s article. I disagree when he says that the Web is an easy way to write a paper, that information on the Internet is out of date, and that Web research leads to a student using less thought and logic. I have come to realize the wonderful contribution the web has made to students’ research papers.

First, Rothenberg states his “class had fallen victim to the latest easy way of writing a paper: doing their research on the World Wide Web” (59). In doing my research, however, I did not find it necessarily easier to use the Internet. Instead, I spent a lot of time searching through various search engines and the information each one gave me. Once I thought I found a web site worth reading, I then had to analyze it carefully to decide whether it would be helpful. For instance, I found a web site titled “Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation,” which is the new name of the SOA.