THE INTERNET AS A SOURCE FOR DOCUMENTING ACADEMIC PAPERS
THE INTERNET AS A SOURCE FOR DOCUMENTING ACADEMIC PAPERS

Summary/Abstract: The starting point for our paper is a stereotype that is still true of the academic environment, stressing the pre-eminence of books in the processof gathering reference material. Some experts even advise resorting to online resources only after allthe traditional ways of documenting a topic have been exhausted. In practice, these approaches prove to be superannuated, as even the most conservative fields of knowledge have shown interest in what the internet has to offer. The way undergraduate students usually gather supporting documentation shows that most scientific papers can be drawn up at an acceptable level by resorting uniquely to onlineresources. In this paper we are going to examine the way of doing effective documenting work, but we will also shift the focus on some practical aspects, and analyze the right approach to quoting internet sources. Researching bibliographical sources is important in the students’ scientific activity, since each statement within a scientific text must be accounted for. The purpose of documenting a topic is to identify those sources of information that prove useful both in the structuring of the theoretical framework of any paper, and in providing the scientific basis for practical applications. All the theoretical premises in the literature in the field must be indicated in all honesty, so that any reader can identify them, and any suspicion of plagiarism is ruled out. We will review the principles of documenting, focusing on those which aim the subject matter, objectives, directions, and methods of doing documenting work, particularly with reference to online sources. We will show what the differences in approach consist in, when we no longer do research in libraries, but look for information by exploiting the inexhaustible potential of the virtual environment. In addition, we will uncover some of the tricks that can be used in order to make more effective the results of search engines, and we will also give some tips on the credibility, and opportune times of various categories of online documenting resources. If the information provided by the internet has proven useful, and been organically integrated within the body of the paper, then it will have to be acknowledged in the critical apparatus of any scientific text. The ways of recording online sources differ from those used for classical bibliographical resources, only to the extent that there is no counterpart in the printed format, no matter which of the standard quotation systems has been chosen. Taking into account the ever growing trend towards using online resources as sources of information for research and documentation in a formative education system, the present paper has a pronounced practical character.

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