Internet is a good choice when doing a research. This is a tool which has specific characteristic that will give you both advantage and disadvantage. The advantages of using internet are getting an access to valuable and updated information easily since internet connects people and writing in its e-journals also internet discussion groups. This is an efficient route for to get daily information like newspaper and other printing journals. This tool also enables you to get more options in getting information since it has hundreds page for one keyword. Internet also gives a new way to express opinion and argumentations even ideas for those who do not have an access to printing media. The researcher will also have access to reliable or unreliable information since people have various interests so the information will be varied. Internet also gives easy access for various databases and datasets from various websites like statistical data, demographic or social science data. This tool will also provide data from U.S. federal government as one of the biggest publishers. It will be easy to get international information not only official data from the countries official websites but also citizen’s discussion and newsgroup from various nationalities.
The other advantages that will be obtained from doing a research by internet are speed, timeliness and multimedia. Researching through the internet only needs few seconds and in minutes you will have enough information for your research. Having information made few seconds ago is possible through the internet. Obtaining more information since you can have not only text but also graphics, video and audio. The best advantage is hyper-linking. This is a link which is inserted in the web page which contains related source and information.
Though it seems like internet has big advantages but it also has big disadvantages. The most significant disadvantages are its collection of information which means advantages and disadvantages. On the internet, you will have scholarly paper which has beneficial and correct also reliable information and a child’s short essay about her vacation. There are reliable newswire as well as wrong information from the opposite side of the subject along with advertisements and commercials; there are also scientific reports from official Department of Energy. Sometimes, it is difficult to separate the right information for your research.
For some people, it is difficult to find the right information effectively. You will have effective search method when you use library traditional electronic database. Internet is limited by the search engines. The result of the search engine is also influenced by the way web pages are created. Sometimes you will only be able to have small part of the entire pages on the internet. It is difficult to distinguish the valuable of the trivial pages so you will have random results. Web is appeared in the early 1990s, almost all information in the internet was uploaded at that time. Nowadays, people trend to upload older data which makes internet as one of the most complete source in finding information. The lack of internet is due to the lack of context since the search engine only gives single page from a multipage document, the large context may be lost. The information on the internet is usually temporary. Web is unstable. The information will be disappear and move or appear again in different page. This can be a problem since they need to have a stable page for reference which is the most strict rule in academic research.
Coverage’s selectivity is the other problem of internet. Though internet has a large capacity to have more information, most of knowledge and reliable reference are printed. Searching information through the internet is no longer a comprehensive way to get the right info or knowledge. What’s on the internet is beyond the limits of the search engines. Off-limits sites sometimes can only be accessed only to those who have the password, subscription fee and registered member. You can also see that this off-limit websites are newspapers and journal online, professional website with only privileged member.