The Web and Research Papers (fwd) -Reply

[Dan Lester]

Interesting food for thought, but my answer is basically "so
what"?  See more comments below, in bold.


There's an interesting op-ed piece in the new issue
of the Chronicle of Higher Education. The article is
titled "How the Web Destroys the Quality of Students'
Research Papers", and is written by David
Rothenberg, an associate professor of philosophy at
the New Jersey Institute of Technology.  It's in the
"Point of View" section (p. A44) of the 8/15/97 issue.

Note that it is an op-ed piece, not a research study.  Any
one of us is capable of doing the same thing.

Rothenberg bemoans students' use of Web resources
as an easy and less-than-desirable way to gather
information for research papers. While part of his position
is based on the usual arguments about the quality of
resources found on the Web, he also notes that
students seem to be using books less and less, in
favor of readily available articles and other sources.

None of this is new.  Plagiarism, having others write
your papers, term paper services, using inadequate
resources, and so forth have been around as long as
papers have been assigned.  At least the students MAY
be doing more of their own work. Web resources have
the same variable quality as print resources.  Many
forget that fact since resources are pre-selected before
going on library shelves, but are not pre-selected on the
web except on web pages like those done by Carol
Oakes and others.

While Rothenberg, as a professor, takes "much of the
blame for the decline in the quality of student research"

That is mighty decent of him, since the professor is the
ONE that is ultimately responsible for the students, their
research, and their writing.  

in his classes, he also assigns a portion of the blame
to libraries. At one point he notes "Of course, you can't
blame the students for ignoring books. When college
libraries are diverting funds from books to computer
technology that will be obsolete in two years at most,
they send a clear message to students: Don't read,
just connect. Surf. Download. Cut and paste."

Nonsense.  The professor still controls what the students
do, not the librarians.  We've always had students come
in with dumb assignments.  Any prof could say "no web
citations allowed".  The libraries respond to the needs
of the students and faculty.  Just because one old
school philosopher thinks the web or technology are
bad doesn't make it so.  

He also states: "Libraries used to be repositories of
words and ideas. 

They still are, even if he has been blinded by the glare
of monitors.  The same books are in the same stacks,
particularly in philosophy and other humanities.

Now they are seen as centers for the retrieval of information.
Some of this information comes from other, bigger libraries, in
the form of books that can take time to obtain through
interlibrary loan. 

Huh?  They've always been centers for retrieval of info
and still are, even if some of the tools and techniques
have changed.  Even if he longs for the good ol' card
cat, it was a replacement for older forms of catalogs,
and was heretical when Dewey first proposed and
implemented it.  And libraries have had ILL for many
decades.  Read old LJs from the thirties and earlier and
see the early ILL copies by photographic techniques,
both microfilm and "print".  He's at a relatively small
library in New Jersey, and most likely does ILLs, unless
he regularly drives down to Columbia or Harvard or
Rutgers or somewhere else. As far as I know most
philosophers don't just contemplate their navels like he
appears to have done here.

What happens to the many students...who
scramble to write a paper the night before it's due?

Same as always: 1) Whine to librarians just before
closing time.  2) Throw some lousy crap from idiot
sources together and turn it in.  3) Most likely get a D or
F on this masterpiece.  Electronic resources won't do
much for these losers unless they completely plagiarize
some web page.

The computer screen, the gateway to the world
sitting right on their desks, promises instant access--
but actually offers only a pale, two-dimensional
version of a real library."

Indeed it lacks wooden shelves, ivy, fine leather bound
volumes, silence at all times, and aged spinster
librarians in orthopedic sneakers with their hair in a
bun.  Many libraries in the country and the world lack
those same things.  Lacking some of them is a bit sad to
those of old enough to reminisce about the "olden days
before computers".  However, limiting ourselves to no
ILL, trying to buy every book anyone wants, or never
using computers would be terminally foolish.  

Even the "real library" he used as an undergrad back
when was very different from earlier "real libraries"
with chained books or scrolls or stone tablets.  Times
change, and people need to do so too if they want
healthy survival in changing times.

dan

Dan Lester, Network Information Coordinator
Boise State University Library, Boise, Idaho, 83725 USA
voice: 208-385-1235   fax:  208-385-1394
dlester at bsu.idbsu.edu     OR    alileste at idbsu.idbsu.edu
Cyclops' Internet Toolbox:    http://cyclops.idbsu.edu
"How can one fool make another wise?"   Kansas, 1979.