Shanna Phillips

Online Assessment Project

The web site I have decided to evaluate for the online assessment project is entitled Questia.com. I came across this web site during my search for the “Middle Ages” at Yahoo.com and, at first, was quite pleased with what I had discovered. Claiming over 70,000, full books and journal articles on any subject from anthropology to music, Questia.com reigns as the world’s largest online library. However, after a thorough investigation of the web site, I uncovered some discouraging realities behind the hyped-up services that Questia.com claims to offer.

First, I will start off by explaining the benefits of using Quesia.com. Theoretically, the main advantage of using an online library is obvious. At Questia.com, users can access an abundance of full texts on the Middle Ages, from their computers at home. Therefore, research can be completed without traveling anywhere. Questia.com is programmed to support an unlimited number of users for each text, whereas at a regular library, one person has access to one book at a time. In this respect, Questia.com is convenient and saves time.

Besides the abundance of full texts provided by this online library, Questia.com offers many other useful research tools. In the left margin of the page, a number of links are listed to assist users in research and paper writing. These links include, “Paper Writing Ideas,” which features a number of paper topics for the Middle Ages, “Citations,” which shows the user how to cite information using MLA, APA, Chicago, Manual of Style, ASA, and Turabian citation formats, and an informative link on plagiarism. Some more of these useful links include, “Research for Professional Presentation” and “Research for Classroom Teaching.” At the top of the web site’s main page is a power search option, where users can type a specific keyword in the box and choose to search through either books, journals, encyclopedias, or all of these resources at once. For example, if I typed in “Beowulf” with the “all” option selected, the search engine would find a number of different translations of the actual text of Beowulf, as well as books, journals, and encyclopedia articles written about Beowulf.

While trying to determine the search engine’s efficiency, I ran into many problems. When I typed in “Middle Ages,” 37,000 results came up under this subject. After searching through the first few hundred titles that came up, I discovered that around title number 97, the results no longer had anything to do with the Middle Ages. From there on, any title including the word "Middle" or "Ages" came up on the list (ie. "Isreal's Place in the Middle East, A Pluralist Perspective," "Climate Through the Ages: A Study of the Climatic Factors and their Variations," and "Doing History: Investigating with Children in Elementary and Middle Schools"). I even found a title that was repeated, "Golden River to Golden Road: Society, Culture, and Change in the Middle East," 1926, Torch Press, and another book by the same title except that it was published instead in 1961 by Antiquarian Press. Among the 97 entries that related to the Middle Ages, over half of those entries were antiquated by 50 to 100 years. That left only about 45 books that may have been valid.

At this point in my search, I was determined that Questia.com was a fraudulent hoax. However, it then occurred to me that I might need to narrow my search. I then typed in “Canterbury Tales” and over 50 entries of fairly recent publication appeared on the list. The same thing occurred when I typed in Beowulf and Margery Kempe; however only one entry appeared for Julian of Norwich. I tried to look up the specific title of "The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Middle Ages" and absolutely no entry for this book surfaced. I was unable find any professional or formal opinions on Questia.com and am therefore left uncertain on the consistency and integrity of this service.

Not only is this web site’s legitimacy questionable, but this service also comes at a lofty price. In order to receive the texts in full, users must subscribe at a whopping $19.95 per month. In my opinion, $19.95 is much too expensive for such a service, even if the consistency of the library’s content was not disputable. This online library contains no more (or maybe even fewer) resources than an average college library. Therefore, users are really only paying for convenience, not for a greater number of texts that they are misled into believing that they are receiving from this service. Questia.com’s catchy label as the world’s largest online library seemed less attractive to me when I realized that I can find more texts at my own school library for relatively free.

I urge all people to fully research any online service before carelessly subscribing away their money. Advertising can be very persuasive and in many cases is meant to mislead. In my opinion, Questia.com is guilty of practicing elusive advertising and is less than worthy in its content. I would rather spend 5 hours at the library doing research than support such a service with my hard-earned dollars. After all, who ever said research is supposed to be easy and convenient?