OWL coordinators can use Web and gopher technologies to help students find promising starting points for research. At Purdue, for example, we've tried to offer a list of search tools and indexes for student writers. But, OWLs can do more than help students find useful resources, OWL coordinators can try to include links that encourage new ways of research.
For example, the Web not only expands the limits of research resources, it makes the people who collected those resources more accessible to students. Think of all the Web sites that link to the e-mail of the people who maintain the site. Even this piece contains a link to the author.
In an apparent paradox, then, the networked computer may give students a better chance to contact other human beings during the research process, a better chance than they'd have if they only consulted print resources.
