At 31, I’m not young (though some of you will think of me as young) and I’m not old (though I’m older than some of you). I was in college in the late 1990s (St. Olaf) and then again in the mid 2000’s (MS through Mankato). Both involved some research into scientific literature, but the process was very different.
The Washington Post article reminded me of sitting in the St. Olaf Science Library and looking through the Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature for journal articles about whatever I was researching. When I found an abstract that I liked, I checked if it was on the library’s subscription list for the year I needed and then went to the stacks and pulled out the issue. After 15 minutes of searching (if I was lucky) I had one article. Usually I then paid 10 cents per page to photocopy it and bring it back to the dorm.
For my master’s research, I never left my dining room table. I browsed hundreds of abstracts and dozens of articles just by clicking and ended up with a much better product in fractions of the time.
I know that much of the Washington Post article was about using just general web searches as opposed to credible sources, and what I did in the two settings actually centered around the same journals. But no matter what you feel about technology bringing up new concerns about validity of sources, nobody can deny how much it helps the research process.
One teacher mentioned in the article requires books as sources because he says the research process is valuable. Would anyone argue that finding journal articles the “old fashioned way” (in a bound index and on a library shelf) has any value anymore?
