As a new Ph.D. preparing for his first university appointment in June 2006, the author began constructing World History I and II surveys for which his graduate training left him feeling underprepared. Among the myriad challenges, he sought to create a research assignment for general education students that would address a diverse range of backgrounds and learning needs, with a particular concern for the considerable number of underprivileged students who were first-in-family to college. It needed to be doable using a library with a modest collection, and brief enough that he might grade from 100 to 160 of them each semester. Ideally, it also would require critical reading skills, allow him to learn from his students, meaningfully integrate technology, and be as plagiarism-proofed as possible. The result, an assignment asking students to find and review a scholarly article from the JSTOR academic journal database, suggests many of the challenges and opportunities associated with Internet-based assignments. (Contains 7 notes.)