Guide to Web Research and MLA Essay

The World Wide Web is the broadest source of information today. Other than this fact, it is also accessible through the computer, given that it has Internet access. Since it has a broad source of information, people use it for academic research, besides its use for entertainment. However, one major problem with Web searches is the published material’s credibility since it is often open to a wide variety of audiences and contributors. Since the students’ reliability on Web research is increasing, then there is a need to address the issue about the web sources’ credibility. One way to ensure the sources’ credibility is to evaluate the details on the website itself—like the author, date published, and web site title. These details can help one to understand the worth and uniqueness of the information on the website since some information tend to be rehashes of the original one. To make things simpler, it is quite advisable to look at academic websites—like university databases—and online scholarly journal sites. Most of the time, the information here is quite credible since the authors from such websites have the credentials to prove their words’ worth. I believe everyone already had their fair share of frustration from web research. More often than not, the information that appears on the first page tend to come from websites ranging from slightly reliable to non-reliable. Other than that, I have also encountered links to websites wherein payment is required in order to gain access to the information—like many online libraries. These problems can discourage students and force them into accepting the information regardless of its credibility. Furthermore, it can also exhaust the energy of students, making them more timid. The Modern Language Association or MLA is a language and writing institution developed in order to create a common guide of academic writing that the students, scholars, and members of the academe could follow. It basically provides a network upon which members from different places could share information and academic trends with others (MLA, 2008). Since the organization has a myriad of members wherein most are experts in the academe, their guide becomes a requirement in order to help the students and other members of the academe to organize their academic papers properly. Fighting Until the Very End of Life The poem Do not Go Gentle into that Good Night by Dylan Thomas shares the struggle of a dying person or a person’s grief on the gradual loss of a dying loved one. Basically, the poem centers on the theme of not giving up and fighting until death. Once a person succumbs to the thought of death, then he or she may already be considered dead. In a nutshell, the first stanza entails a persona telling the reader (or to whom the poem is dedicated) to not give up easily and go fight against death and weakness—basically, to become fierce. In stanzas two to five, the persona gives out specific examples of fierce men never giving up, which in turn supports the first stanza. In stanza six, the persona addresses the reader (or to whom the poem is dedicated) to show him or her the fierceness that he or she once had, or the fierceness of his or her soul, which would make the persona happy (Thomas, 1971). The persona of the poem may be Dylan Thomas himself, as he wrote this poem for his dying father—growing weaker from old age and blindness. Throughout the poem, he sought to encourage his father to fight on for his life, no matter how inevitable death was (citation). Besides him being the persona, it could also assume the role of a dying person who encourages others to fight on and to never give up until the very end. The persona assumes a sad yet encouraging tone throughout the poem. The phrases Do not go gentle into that good night and Rage, rage against the dying light are also reiterated throughout the poem in order to give emphasis to the theme of the poem. The persona also constantly reminds the reader and the target person to never go down without a fight since giving up life early would mean that the person is just as good as dead already. The two connotative words that have been heavily used throughout the poem is night and (dying) light. Basically, night here could be referring to the dying person (not the persona) accepting his or her fate peacefully, although there may as well be other connotations for this word. On the other hand, light or the phrase dying of the light could be pertaining to death, or at least weakness. The poem follows an alternating rhyme scheme, wherein the key words to follow are night and day. There is also a repetition of the two phrases Do not go gentle into that good night and Rage, rage against the dying light which gives more emphasis to the theme of the poem. The poem’s form and tone seem too soft and gentle for the poem’s subject which is death. This creates an irony that the persona is asking the dying person to become enraged against death. Metaphors and personifications are used throughout the poem, in order to give a hopeful tone for the persona’s beseeching of the dying person, instead of a tone associated with grief and loss. An example would be the stanza: â€Å"Though wise men at their end know dark is right, / Because their words had forked no lightning they / Do not go gentle into that good night† (4-6). References Thomas, D. (1971). Do not go gentle into that good night. Poets. org. Retrieved July 4, 2009 from http://www. poets. org/viewmedia. php/prmMID/15377. MLA. (2008). About the MLA. Retrieved July 4, 2009 from http://www. mla. org/about.