Snoopy typing a thesis...Dear friends,
we all know that a thesis declares what you firmly believe and helps you to focus your search for information. I think this is a very scrupulous work: you need to look at a great number of sources before saying “I know enough about this subject”. Writing a thesis is a sort of craftwork: you’re supposed to bring together what other people said about your topic; this process involves the so-called “intellectual honesty” which means that you should always declare who said what you’re reporting and where readers can find this piece of information. As regards books there should be no problems because you can easily check the author and the date of a specific publication. All troubles emerge when you’re looking at a website: in this case you need criteria in order to test the validity of your source. Here I suggest you several significant steps to organize your work:
- The Internet gives you a great variety of data so use a searcher engine ( e.g. “Google”) as a filter. Clicking on the links Mrs Guth suggested us I found how useful is the URL: you can immediately realize if your source is serious or not;
- website administrator: pay attention to the essential references (e.g. e-mail address; phone number) of the person who supervises the way the website functions;
- check when your website was last updated: ask yourself if the website is updated regularly and if the information you need is suitable.
- Del.icio.us.com: why don’t you benefit from what other people said about a website? Even just to have an idea about it take a look at the notes describing the content of the webpage.
Even after doing what I listed above there are still problems about content, style and completeness of the text. Moreover it’s possible to find texts without pages so…what a chaos if you’re writing your footnotes! And what about the author? It’s really difficult to know if the information is the original one or if it has been copied. Peers, have you found proper solutions to all these difficulties? I’m waiting for your replies!
kisses
alessia
we all know that a thesis declares what you firmly believe and helps you to focus your search for information. I think this is a very scrupulous work: you need to look at a great number of sources before saying “I know enough about this subject”. Writing a thesis is a sort of craftwork: you’re supposed to bring together what other people said about your topic; this process involves the so-called “intellectual honesty” which means that you should always declare who said what you’re reporting and where readers can find this piece of information. As regards books there should be no problems because you can easily check the author and the date of a specific publication. All troubles emerge when you’re looking at a website: in this case you need criteria in order to test the validity of your source. Here I suggest you several significant steps to organize your work:
- The Internet gives you a great variety of data so use a searcher engine ( e.g. “Google”) as a filter. Clicking on the links Mrs Guth suggested us I found how useful is the URL: you can immediately realize if your source is serious or not;
- website administrator: pay attention to the essential references (e.g. e-mail address; phone number) of the person who supervises the way the website functions;
- check when your website was last updated: ask yourself if the website is updated regularly and if the information you need is suitable.
- Del.icio.us.com: why don’t you benefit from what other people said about a website? Even just to have an idea about it take a look at the notes describing the content of the webpage.
Even after doing what I listed above there are still problems about content, style and completeness of the text. Moreover it’s possible to find texts without pages so…what a chaos if you’re writing your footnotes! And what about the author? It’s really difficult to know if the information is the original one or if it has been copied. Peers, have you found proper solutions to all these difficulties? I’m waiting for your replies!
kisses
alessia
3 comments:
Hi Alessia,
unfortunately I think there are no solutions at all! As you pointed out, we can use many criteria but it's just a list of things we can do to filter information. However, the Net is too chaotic. As you wrote, most of the pages are "anonymous" and we can't say if the documents we find are copied or if they're original!
What about consulting the OPAC? I prefer using it!!!
Stefania
Hi Alessia, I think that it's true that in the Net you can find everything, but you can always have the doubt if it is an original site.Maybe, the most important criteria is, as you focused on, to pay attention when the site was last updated. Another thing that can be useful is to read what people think about a Website in account as Del.icio.us!!However, The net is a real important resource...I can't think to do, for example, my thesis without it!
Hi Alessia,
let's see if I will trust in online sources for the production of my thesis! I'm quite skeptical!
The net is for everybody. I mean everybody can write article and post them. I need more qualified person to trust in.
As stefania noticed, what about anonymous writers? They can say a lot of interesting things, but we can't know anything else about them!
See you next!
Giovi
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