The Use of Internet in Academic Research:Importance and Procedure

By

Dr. Muhammad Sajid MirzaPrincipal Librarian I Dr. M. Hamidullah Library

Islamic Research Institute, IIUIm.sajid@iiu.edu.pk

What is Internet

International Network of Computers since 1994

Universities

Government

Business

Organizations

Individuals

December, 1995 16 millions users June, 2014 (est.) 3,035 millions users

In Pakistan: 2000 133900 users

2014 29,128,970 users

The Internet

• The Web and the InternetThe two are sometimes used interchangeably but

there is a difference.

• The Internet connects computers File transfer, involving a variety of protocols (e.g. ftp)

• The web connects pages Hyperlinks: the http at the beginning of the URL of

every web page

Importance

A study of student research behavior (ProQuest, 2007), found that more than 60 percent of students consider Google to be the easiest place to start research, compared to less than 20 percent who find library databases the easiest starting point.

What can we do Using the Internet?

Locate information sourcesLibrary catalogues (worldcat, LOC, NLP, IIU, AIOU), publishers etc.

Access online journals, e-books, thesis and databasese.g. HEC Digital Library, PRR, JSTOR, Open Access Journals, etc.

Import references and citationsEndnote, Mendeley, Zotero, RefWorks

Check similarity / plagiarismTurnitin

Attend a webinar or online meeting Attend a massive open online course (mooc) Submit a research paper for publication/conference Share your research using social media e.g. Linkedin, academia.edu, etc. Monitor impact of your research e.g. Google scholar Search for fellowships/grants Join a mailing list

Using Internet

Browser: It is a software application used to locate and display Web

pages. The most popular browsers are Google Chrome,

Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox

URL’s Uniform Resource Locator The web “address” that connects you with a website Goes in the address bar at the top of the screen Gives you information about the website

Parts of a URL

http://www.iiu.edu.pk

http://--hypertext transfer protocol:the language computers use to “talk” to one another

www—world wide web:the body of information connected by the cables and computers of the Internet

.iiu—domain name:the structured, alphabetic-based, unique name for a computer on a network

.edu—top level domain:gives an idea of where the document is stored

Why Effective Internet Searching

Un-organized information

Well-prepared searches will eliminate useless hits and wasted time.

Internet Search Tools

Search engines (Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc.) Are like the index in the back of a book Let you search for specific words and topics

Meta-search engines (webcrawler, ixquick, Mamma, etc.)

Sends your search terms to several other search engines at once.

Gives an overview of a topic across the Internet.

Subject guides (www virtual library, IPL2, An Online Library of Literature etc.)

Let you search for concepts or subject categories Go from general to specific

Specialized search tools (databases, reference sites, newsgroups etc.)

Source of invisible information, usually called deep web

Please remember

Common-Word Exclusion Google ignores some common words called “stop words”

e.g., the, on, of. Stop words tend to slow down searches without improving results

32-Word Limit Google limits queries to 32 words

Case Insensitivity Google is case-insensitive; it shows both upper- and lowercase

results Ignoring Punctuation

Google ignores most punctuation and special characters including , . ; ? [ ] ( ) @ / < >

Internet Research Strategy

Define your topic and note initial keywords Locate background information and identify

additional keywords Choose the proper search tools Perform your search

Basic Search, Phrase search, Complex Search

Evaluate your search results Refine your search, if needed

Basic Search

All search engines offer basic searching

Read search engine’s help page

Use “trial and error approach”

Phrase Searching

When you construct a search with more than one keyword, you often need two or more words to be in a sentence one right after the other. For such searching, we use phrase search

Use “quotation marks” around the phrase

Complex Search

A complex search uses special connecting words and symbols called Boolean operators to define the relationships between keywords and phrases.

Boolean operators are: AND, OR AND NOT

Use of advance search and filters

Using Punctuation, symbols and Voice

Asterisk (*) Add an asterisk within a search as a placeholder for

any unknown terms

Two periods (--) Separate numbers by two periods without spaces (..)

to see results that contain numbers in a given range of things like dates, prices, and measurements.Example: camera $50..$100

Voice Searching

Remember….

The best results will appear on the first page or two of hits

No two search engines are alike. Try another search engine, or rephrase your terms if you don’t get good results.

Evaluating Websites

Book publishers weed out inaccurate information.

No one checks the Internet for accuracy.

Evaluating Websites

Before you start using the information

EVALUATE!

Evaluating Websites

Who is the author? Is he/she an authority on the subject? Does she/he have an e-mail address?

Is the information accurate? Can it be verified in an encyclopedia? Is it relevant to your topic? Does the author indicate where he found the

information?

Is the information prejudiced? Is it trying to persuade you to another point of

view? Is it trying to persuade you to buy a product?

Evaluating Websites

Is the information current? When was the last time the website was updated? Are the links broken?

Evaluating Websites

Is the information current? When was the last time the website was updated? Are the links broken?

Evaluating Websites

Is the information current? When was the last time the website was updated? Are the links broken?

Thanks

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