With the Internet-evoked paradigm shift in the academy, there has been a growing interest in students' Web-based information-seeking and source-use practices. Nevertheless, little is known as to how individual students go about searching for sources online and selecting source material for writing particular assignments. This exploratory study focuses on the Web-based searching and reading practices of a group of undergraduate students at a university in Hong Kong in preparing their end-of-semester written assignments. The data drawn upon included interviews and the students' process logs and their notes from reading. The study revealed that the students employed a range of search engines to conduct online research, they skim-read and read around search terms to select sources and source content, and they took indexical notes to document their decisions over citations for their essay. The paper ends by pointing out some pedagogical implications of the study and suggesting in-depth case studies as an avenue of further research.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09523987.2012.738013]