3effective internet search

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Performing Effective Internet Search

Prepared by: xxx First Prepared on: xx-xx-xx Last Modified on: 22-04-2009Copyright 2004 Asia Pacific Institute of Information Technology

Research Methods for

Degree Study


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Module Code and Module Title Title of SlidesResearch Methods for Degree Study

Topic & Structure of the lesson

The Search Engine

What is a Search Engine?

Types of Search Engine

Importance of Search Engines to Academic Research

Using Search Engines

Using Phrases and Keywords

Effective Search Engine tactics Risks of Online Sources

Academic strength of online resources


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Learning Outcomes

Understand the importance of search

engine in Secondary Research

Using search engines effectively withappropriate keywords and phrases

Understand the risk of using online

resources for academic research


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Main Teaching Points

The Search Engine


Types of Search Engine

Importance of Search Engines to Academic Research


Using Phrases and Keywords

Effective Search Engine tactics Risks of Online Sources

Academic strength of online resources


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A search eng ineis a program designed tohelp find information stored on a computersystem such as the World Wide Web, or a

personal computer. The search engine allows one to ask for

content meeting specific criteria (typically

those containing a given word or phrase)and retrieves a list of references thatmatch those criteria.


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The search engine allows one to ask for

content meeting specific criteria (typically

those containing a given word or phrase)

Retrieves a list of references that match those

criteria.

In most cases, search eng ineusually refers

to a Web search engine, which searches forinformation on the public Web


7/27Module Code and Module Title Title of SlidesResearch Methods for Degree Study

Types of Search Engines

Web Search Engines:

Google

MSN Search Yahoo! Search

Northern Lights

Ask Jeeves

Academic Journal Search Engines

(Subscription)



Types of Search Engines

Academic Journal Search Engines(Subscription)

Emerald Journal

Proquest

EBSCO Business/IT Search

IEEE Journal Databases

Library Search Engines (OPAC)APIIT/UCTI Library Search engine

National Library Search engine



Search Engines - Software

They use software programs known as

robots, spiders or crawlers.

A robot is a piece of software thatautomatically follows hyperlinks from one

document to the next around the Web.

When a robot discovers a new site, it sends

information back to its main site to beindexed.

Ref: http://www.monash.com/spidap2.html
http://www.monash.com/spidap2.htmlhttp://www.monash.com/spidap2.html



Importance of Search Engines

For the same reason you need a card

catalogue or book in a library.

There is lots of great and useful information in

a library, but it's physically impossible to

examine all the books personally.



Importance of Search Engines

Not even the most indefatigable web-

surfer could hyperlink to all the documents

in the aptly named World Wide Web.

Search engines gives you the ability to

look for more information from one source

(Search engine)




1. Know what youre looking for: Are you looking for information about a person?

A company?

A software product? A health-related problem?

Do you want to find a job?

Do you need to research a term paper?

Document a news story? Size up your company's competition?


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Research Methods for Degree Study


2. Using keywords and phrases: Searching on a noun (the name of a person, place or

thing), remember that most nouns are subsets ofother nouns. Enter the smallest possible subset thatdescribes what you want.

Be specific.

Example: If you want to buy a car, don't enter the

keyword "car" if you can enter the keyword"Toyota." Better still, enter the phrase "Toyotashowrooms" AND the name of the city where you live.





3. Using special functions:

Read the search engine help files and take

advantage of the available search refining

options.

Use phrases, if possible.

Use the Boolean AND (or the character +) to

include other keywords that you would expectto find in relevant documents.




Using Search Engines:

Example: If you want to find out how medical

details about your grandmother's diagnosis of

Alzheimer's Disease, try entering

"Alzheimer's" AND "symptoms" AND"prognosis." If you want to find out about

Alzheimer's care and community resources,

query on "Alzheimer's" AND "support groups"

AND "resources" AND NOT "symptoms."





4. Using special constrains:

Read the search engine help files and take

advantage of the available search refining

options.

Limiting the kind of file to look for such as pdf.

or html.

Limiting the time frame such as last 6 monthsor 5 years.

The choice of language




Risk of Online Sources

Finding the information you want on the Internetis only the first step. There is a lot of material

available, but not all of it is equally reliable and

useful.

As a researcher, his/her large part of the job isnot simply to find information but to make

judgements about its merit.

Before any material found being used, one needs

to spend some time evaluating it for accuracy and

importance.




Evaluating Online Resources

The source: The source of the material might give you a

clue to it's reliability.

A site maintained by a university orgovernment organisation might be more

reliable than one maintained by a private

citizen.

Research papers published by academicbodies are usually refereed or accepted by

board of editors who are the experts of the

field.


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Accredited Author: The status of the writer is often of

considerable importance in deciding the

reliability of information. One can probably assume that material

written or otherwise provided by a known

expert in the field is likely to be reliable.

i.e. A PhD or Professor related to the topic

Authors credibility can be verified by looking

at their list of publications and bodies that

they are attach to


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Age of Online Information

Sometimes the age of information matters. If

one needs current statistics then check the

age of the material found.As a rule of thumb, in most fields anything

more than five years old is probably out-

dated.


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Frequency of citation But just because you have never heard of the

author of the page doesn't mean that the

information is inaccurate or unreliable, but itdoes mean that you can't take it at face value.

You might have to do some cross-checking,

either elsewhere on the net, or with books or

articles.


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Internet Design and integrity:

How an Internet resource is designed may

have a lot of influence on how you use it.

A site which is always too busy to access, too

slow to download or too difficult to navigate

may not be worth your valuable time, no

matter how useful and relevant theinformation is.


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Conclusion

Results from a web search engine is useful if

used effectively

Unless the source is accredited (i.e. web

journals), take the information at face value.

Use together with primary research and physical

resources (i.e. core text books, reference books)


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Tutorial

Identify a topic/subject and use the varioussearch engines ( 5 search engines) by

playing around with the various functions to

search for information

Prepare a table highlighting the kind of info,

file type, amount of info, speed, relevancy

and etc for all 5 search engines used.

Provide recommendation for the best search

engine for the identified topic/subject


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Review Questions

1. Define the term search engine2. Discuss the four methods that can be used for an effective search

of information online.

3. What are the risks of information found online?

4. Is it good to solely rely on online information for an assignment or

in doing research? Justify your answer5. Information Technology has greatly advanced in the last two

decades. Discuss the benefits of this to research.

6. Discuss the approaches that can be taken to evaluate the reliability

of online information.


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Q & A

Question and Answer Session


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Next Session

Literature Review

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