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The article discusses the use of the Internet by college students for academic purposes. While almost all college students use the Internet on a regular basis, very few distinguish between peer-reviewed, scholarly sources, and any random Internet page. This can cause problems when students use improper sources for their academic research, which has a side effect of lowering the quality of papers as a whole. Accrediting agencies are now considering information-literacy programs as measures of an institution's performance to encourage education in the use of academic resources.

The article presents information according to which Ed Brent, a professor of sociology at the University of Missouri in Columbia has developed a computer program that not only grades his students' essays but also gives feedback on how they can improve their work. The program simply runs through the students' papers to see if those elements are thoroughly presented, analyzing the semantics and assessing the writer's understanding of the topic. If a student leaves something out or gets something wrong, the program will flag those mistakes, to help the student improve the next draft.