Publishing is changing, and some research materials may only be available online; government agencies have led the way in the online migration of documents.

Many libraries no longer subscribe to the paper version of some periodicals, but either subscribe to the online version of the journal or rely on full text access through Web-based periodical databases.

The online version of a periodical article is no more or less reliable than the same article found in the print version of the journal. On the Web, however, you can't see a periodical's glossy, lurid cover, or lack of one, so it can take more effort to distinguish among Scholarly Versus Popular Magazines. Wherever you find it, in print or online, a source must be considered and evaluated before you use it for research.

Questions to think about:

Do you think this page was designed for the Web, or do you think it was originally something else? If it was originally something else, what something else was it?

What's the Free web vs. the Fee web?

The "free" web is most pages you turn up on Google that are free to look at. However, some sites on Google, like the New York Time will require payment for anything more than the basic services.

There are many other fee sites on the Internet that you have probably seen that want you to subscribe. Actually, the JD Williams Library subscribes to hundreds of online services for you to use for research you have to go through our library homepage to get them--not Google.

For free articles, use one of our library databases. A generalist database, like Academic Search Premier (EbscoHost) can get you started, or choose a database by subject.

You are still using the web when you use our database for articles. For more on this topic, see But my Professor said not to use the Internet...

Adapted from ICYouSee T is for Thinking, Ithaca College Library