The Internet provides a wealth of information at your fingertips but, as with everything free and readily available, it should be used with some caution. You need to be sure that the material you are using is accurate and provided by a reliable source.
If you are looking for online primary resources (i.e. original works such as novels and poems) we would always recommend that you use the e-resources we provide for you via SOLO and Databases A-Z, as you are guaranteed that these will provide you with correct information about the various editions provided, so you can choose the best version to use in your work.
The advantage of resources like these is that you can copy and paste extracts from novels and poems, knowing that they are from a reliable source and available 24/7. There is an online guide to accessing e-resources, which you may find useful.
You may also like to look at some of our subject and author-specific guides, like: Shakespeare: a short guide to online resources.
The following freely available sites have been identified by library staff at the Bodleian Continuing Education Library
Knowing which password to use to access the online resources subscribed to by the Bodleian Libraries can be slightly confusing.
For information about which password to use, see the useful summary provided at: http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/services/passwords.
If you know which database you want to use, you can search for a database by title on either SOLO or Databases A-Z.
If you'd like to find out which databases are available, you can browse by subject in Databases A-Z. Within the list of databases for English, they are divided further into categories including "Primary texts", "Bibliographic Databases" and various specific themes such as "Author-Specific Resources", "Women's Studies".
The internet, of course, also has some excellent free resources. But how can you evaluate whether they are good enough for your studies?
There are several useful guides for evaluating information on the internet produced by other universities. The following is one such example.
Evaluating information found on the Internet (created by John Hopkins University)