Researching For Research Papers

Google vs. Databases

As I stated in The Googlization, I've used Google to aid in my research of several papers in the past. Seeing as sites like Wikipedia are a common result of said searches I thought I would explain why this has worked for me over using databases exclusively. 
I apologize ahead of time for the lack of links, there really isn't much I can link too.

In The Beginning

When I was but a wee student first writing a research paper, I was told to only use the databases the school paid for. At first, topics were given out and research wasn't too terrible to find. After a while, however, this became less of the case. Seeing as my chosen field of study is a baby, relatively speaking, many terms and topics have many names and keywords associated with them.
This is the story of how I went to the dark side.

The Battle Begins

One day I was writing a paper about the effects of technology in the classroom. I figured this would be an easy topic to find research on, but I quickly realized that every keyword I tried either gave me thousands of results with little relevance or no results at all. Seeing as it was fairly late into paper and far too late to change topics, I kept searching... and searching. I was at a loss. How could something so readily talked about in the news have so little to show for it? I knew what I was looking for, what figures I needed to find, but where were they?
So I caved. I was just looking for another keyword to try, I told myself.
I Googled it.
The great sin of school research papers shadowed only by the darkness of plagiarism itself. These were dark times indeed.
That said, I found something. While perusing through a wiki page I found a statistic that caught my eye. It was exactly what I was looking for! So I clicked the reference and was brought straight to the research paper I'd been searching for all night. It was truly a miracle. Yet, we all know the rules of the standardized papers. (Y'know the ones we threw out the window after we made it to college since no one really writes a paper to the whole intro, three body paragraphs, conclusion thing?) I needed three pieces of evidence to break down. My discovery brought me to two. 

The Double Dip

So, the hunt began again. This time I was confident I could find something, and find something I did. It was a long and grueling battle, but eventually, I followed a reference to a research paper that referenced another article which referenced one of those research article hybrids that no one but the person who wrote it can actually understand. It had the statistics and graphs I needed, however, and it gave me not one, but TWO database level articles to reference in my paragraph. (The research itself and the person amazing enough to break down all the words that went with it. A true saint that one.) 

The Aftermath

I had no issues with the paper after that. I've discovered I have a knack for writing once I get the ball rolling. One 98% later I was most definitely proud of the results, but it got me thinking. How could something so vehemently forbidden, help in such a tremendous way? Admittedly I didn't bring this up with my teacher. I didn't want my research to be tainted by the word Google or Wikipedia. 
You'd think using such a powerful search engine would be encouraged, and yet we're forced to use databases we use about all of 5 times in our lives. 
I think instead we should teach smart Googling and Wikipedia use. While I most certainly wasn't going to reference Wikipedia and knew to look at the references for the real information, some people don't. I've peer-reviewed plenty of papers in my time at college and had to pause when I realized who they were citing out of a combination of laziness and desperation. 
We've made these resources. They've become a part of our everyday lives. As such, classes shouldn't just ban these resources outright but teach how to use them smartly, and effectively. Fun fact: I didn't know you could use quotation marks to force Google to search for the entire phrase as a whole instead of the words separately until my second year of college. 
That's the stuff we should be teaching.