How to Do a (Right) Research

I read this article in a weekly news bulletin of the Knox Grammar School.

The teacher asked his science students to research some of the latest and most amazing genetic developments using new biotechnology procedures.
Jim, Tom and Peter used Google as the search engine on the internet for their work. Jim presented a picture of a mouse with what looks like an human ear growing on its back. His source was from the BBC News. Tom found the same picture in Wikipedia and found it was the Vacanti Mouse. Peter found the same picture in Dr Karl's Great Moments in Science on ABC Science. Each boy used the information from Google to write up a report on the Vacanti Mouse.
While their effort on the research work were all commendable, only one was right!

The questions are:
1. Which boy got it right?
2. How, using the internet, can information be validated?
3. What does this mean for finding 'truth'?

BBC, Wikipedia and ABC are all reputable sources. But they provided different interpretations of this genetically engineered ear growing on the back of a mouse. Among them, the ABC Science program, Dr Karl's Great Moments in Science was correct ....... the others wrong.

So how was this determined?

The best (and correct) way is to go to the source of the work - in this case Dr Vacanti. Search for the original reports by Dr Vacanti, then consider the original reports with those given by sources like BBC, Wikipedia and ABC.

The key is to (try the best to) validate straight from the horse's mouth.