Meet Katrina. Katrina is a health science student at RMIT University. Recently, Katrina received her marks back for an assignment and she was shocked to find she hadn’t done as well as she’d hoped. Katrina had done what most students do: She had just Googled her topic.
Feeling down, Katrina asks for feedback from her lecturer, Professor Felinopolous. He explains that while Google is a good starting point to get an overview of a topic, you can’t just use Google and expect to get good marks for your assignment.
So, why is that?
Firstly, the internet is not organised. When you search a term in Google, you’ve probably noticed that you get huge amounts of information returned to you.
These results are based on popularity. In other words, Google is a popularity contest and search results are based on Google’s own ranking, rather than credibility or reliability. Google also knows a bit about you. Its “personalisation” feature means that your search results will be affected by your internet history, location, and IP address, too.
Secondly, there is little quality control on Google. Anyone can write anything on the internet. The information may be biased, inaccurate, or have a hidden agenda. Information could also be sponsored by sources with vested interests. And lots of information is not authoritative or credible. It’s not written by experts or peer-reviewed.
On Google, it can be hard to identify sources. Who wrote it? How do you verify the sources? Trying to find this information can waste valuable research time.
