Effect of the Web on Undergraduate Citation Behavior: Guiding Student Scholarship in a Networked Age

This article provides the last update to a longitudinal study tracking the research behavior of a multi-college undergraduate course in microeconomics from 1996 to 2001. Student term paper bibliographies grew between 1996 and 2000 but included fewer scholarly resources. In 2001, students tended to cite scholarly sources when the professor provided clear and enforceable guidelines in his class assignment. The accuracy and persistency of cited Web documents also increased as a result.