ABSTRACT
Synthesizing fi ndings in the inquiry process involves a host of complex challenges for students and their teachers. From conducting effective searches to skillfully reading as well as composing web-based texts, readers need to navigate the dynamic and sophisticated “ill-structured domain” (Spiro, Collins, Thota, & Feltovich, 2003) of the World Wide Web. It requires that students be able to look across multiple claims, consider different perspectives, decide what is signifi cant, and synthesize a range of information sources in a coherent fashion. This challenge is intensifi ed with web-based inquiry because readers need to make diffi cult informational decisions in the vast ecology of networked information. These decisions include determining what information is needed based on one’s purposes, what information to pay attention to while searching, judging which information is credible and useful, evaluating and weighing oftentimes competing claims and evidence, and putting information together in ways that will make sense to oneself and others.
