Conducting Internet Research

So, just the other day I was asked by my younger sister, currently in college, "What is the right way to conduct internet research?" You see, her first semester she had a writing composition class and had asked me to review her research paper, which I may add was extremely well written... a little too well written!

When I asked her where did she find all of this information, she answered, "the internet of course." I smirked and told her that this paper was not going to fly with her professor without resource documentation and citations, and we would have to start over from scratch. Needless to say, she was quite upset.

After helping her with her paper, I thought it would be a great idea to share the steps we walked through in properly conducting research on the internet:

1. Know your topic - you will need to define your topic and determine what you need to know, and how you plan to present it. This is a good time to brainstorm or mind map ideas that you wish to present in your paper, and create your thesis statement.
   
2. Plan your project - when applicable, develop a basic project timeline to determine what you need to accomplish at the different phases of the research project.
3. Develop questions - by knowing what types of questions you need answered, you could determine where you need to look and what resources (i.e. magazines, encyclopedias, search engines, field-specific databases, statistics, etc.) to use.
4. Identify keywords - identify keywords and phrases to research. Using different approaches can help return better results--approaches like search mechanisms (and/or/not), synonyms, author names, alternate spellings, etc.
5. More is better - never will you find the answers to all of your questions from one source. It is best to combine content, facts and/or opinions from different resources. 
6. Organize - organize your research findings to plan where it will go within your paper. Keeping in mind what you have determined to be key points (see step 1) and the evidence you now have to support these ideas.
   
7. Citations, Citations - document all resources accurately and build a bibliography list to incorporate into your research paper. Remember to use appropriate citation styles when building your list or citing in your paper, i.e. MLA, APA, etc. and one entry per finding.
8. Reevaluate and rework - revisit your thesis statement and determine if you have enough supporting evidence for your argument or ideas. If you find gaps in your research or determine there are still not enough findings, you will need to go back and complete additional research.
9. Write - given that the above steps were completed thoroughly, you can utilize your mind map and outlines to finally write your paper. Remember to keep in mind your thesis statement and the argument/ideas needed to be mentioned.