Web-Loving Students Can Be Prodded to Cite Peer-Reviewed Works in Term Papers, Study Suggests

“[R]esearchers had seen a precipitous drop in the use of books and an equally steep rise in the use of Web sites. Books composed 30 percent of cited sources in 1996, compared with 16 percent in 1999, with continued declines in the following year. Web sites, meanwhile, grew from about 8 percent of cited sources in 1996 to more than 20 percent in 1999. Most of those Web citations, around 40 percent, came from commercial sites.” Scott Carlson previews a forthcoming article by Cornell librarian Phillip M. Davis —Web-Loving Students Can Be Prodded to Cite Peer-Reviewed Works in Term Papers, Study SuggestsChronicle)

The headline seems to contrast web resources with peer-reviewed sources, ignoring the fact that researching online does not automatically exclude peer-reviewed sources. Students who cite library databases often access those databases via a webpage interface, so they are both using the web and finding good sources. (The full article does not seem to be readily linkable.)