Why learn how to search?• Search is central to digital literacy • Teachers have assumed students already know how

to search, guided, in part, by assumptions about students as “digital natives” (the term coined by Marc Prensky).

• But many recent studies suggest the notion of “digital natives” (and “digital immigrants”) is highly problematic.

Search literacy?

“In the 1950s critics pondered, ‘Why Johnny Can’t Read.’ Now they should ponder ‘Why Johnny Can’t Search.’ Whose fault is that? Not the students. If they’re unable to navigate online information it’s because, rather amazingly, they’re almost never taught search literacy in schools.” (Thompson, Smarter Than You Think, p. 205.)

• The ERIAL (Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries) project is a series of studies of student digital literacy conducted at Illinois universities.

• “The majority of students -- of all levels -- exhibited significant difficulties that ranged across nearly every aspect of the search process”… They tended to overuse Google and misuse scholarly databases. They preferred simple database searches to other methods of discovery, but generally exhibited ‘a lack of understanding of search logic’ that often foiled their attempts to find good sources.”

“What Students Don't Know,” Steve Kolowich, Inside Higher Education, August 22, 2011

• “The prevalence of Google in student research is well-documented, but the Illinois researchers found…students were not very good at using Google. They were basically clueless about the logic underlying how the search engine organizes and displays its results. Consequently, the students did not know how to build a search that would return good sources. (For instance, limiting a search to news articles, or querying specific databases such as Google Book Search or Google Scholar.)”*

• Duke and Asher said they were surprised by “the extent to which students appeared to lack even some of the most basic information literacy skills that we assumed they would have mastered in high school.”

• In other words: Today’s college students might have grown up with the language of the information age, but they do not necessarily know the grammar. “I think it really exploded this myth of the ‘digital native,’ ” Asher said. “Just because you’ve grown up searching things in Google doesn’t mean you know how to use Google as a good research tool.”*“What Students Don't Know,” Steve Kolowich, Inside Higher Education, August 22, 2011

In Google we trust?• Pan et al.’s study suggests “college student users have

substantial trust in Google’s ability to rank results by their true relevance to the query. When the participants selected a link to follow from Google’s result pages, their decisions were strongly biased towards links higher in position even if the abstracts themselves were less relevant.”

• Pan et al. secretly altered the results students received, putting low ranked results at the top. Most students appeared to use these results, anyway, trusting the ranking given.

“In Google We Trust: Users’ Decisions on Rank, Position, and Relevance.” Bing Pan et al. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. Volume 12, Issue 3, pages 801–823, April 2007

• In “At Sea in a Deluge of Data,” Alison J. Head and John Wihbey* 

• “Nearly all of the employers [surveyed] said they expected candidates, whatever their field, to be able to search online, a given for a generation born into the Internet world. But they also expected job candidates to be patient and persistent researchers and to be able to retrieve information in a variety of formats, identify patterns within an array of sources, and dive deeply into source material….Many employers said their fresh-from-college hires frequently lack deeper and more traditional skills in research and analysis. Instead, the new workers default to quick answers plucked from the Internet. That method might be fine for looking up a definition or updating a fact, but for many tasks, it proved superficial and incomplete. It turns out that students are poorly trained in college to effectively navigate the Internet’s indiscriminate glut of information.

*At Sea in a Deluge of Data,” Alison J. Head and John Wihbey  Chronicle of Higher Education, JULY 07, 2014.

Search 101• Before getting into the nuts and bolts, it’s important to ask

• What are you trying to find?

List major genres of non-fiction writing. What are some key differences between them?

• Articles: what is the difference between an article in a newspaper, an article in a magazine, a journal article, a peer-reviewed journal article, a conference paper/article, a report, a blog?

• Books: what is the difference between a textbook, an edited collection, a book from a trade publisher, a popular book, a “monograph,”* a book from an academic press, a book of conference proceedings?

• Differences: Who writes them? How long does it take to write? What is their purpose? What kind of ethos will you build if you cite this text?

*http://www.library.illinois.edu/learn/research/monograph.html

Searching for sources – unit 4• How did you do it? • Describe the search engine you used• What terms did you enter? Why?• How many results did you receive? • How far did you look (past the first page?)• What kind of results did you get? • What did you select, and why?

• When I was finding three sources I used Google Scholar. I googled “Gamergate misogyny”. I found three articles; “VIOLENCE AND VICTIMIZATION: MISOGYNY IN GEEK CULTURE (AND EVERYWHERE ELSE)” By Emma Louise Backe, “Feminist Critics of Video Games Facing Threats in ‘GamerGate’ Campaign” By Nick Wingfield, and “An Entreaty to Gamergate: Giving Ourselves Permission to Change for an Inclusive Video Game Culture” by Jason W Ellis. I only looked at the first page of results because I found good ones quickly, and I knew they were scholarly articles as I used Google Scholar not just Google search. I found it hard to find one article I was looking at, so I used the SDSU library database to find it. I didn’t end up using this source, but it was still a good article. I plan on using the New York Times article as evidence about the Gamergate issue. (Hannah)

• To find these articles I google searched “banning anonymity” and “anonymity on the internet”. Then I read the first couple sentences in order to decide if the article was usable for unit 4. (Chanel)

• http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/22/tech/web/huffington-post-anonymous-comments/

• http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1219552• http://www.csl.mtu.edu/cs6461/www/Reading/Davenport0

2.pdf

1. For the first source I typed affects of online bullying in the Google Scholar search box and the third result on the page was named, “The Online Disinhibition Effect.” It basically explores six factors of interaction that cause this disinhibition. 

2. For the second source, I typed anonymity and online incivility in the Google Scholar search box and the second one on the page was, “Free Press Vs. Free Speech.” They did a study to explore the civility in the online communities.

3. For the third source, I just scrolled down the page on the second search I did and stumbled upon a text named, “Effects of anonymity, invisibility, and lack of eye-contact on toxic online disinhibition.” They did a study to better understand the affects that anonymity, invisibility, and lack of eye- contact, have on people that are participating in the online atmosphere. (Christine B)

• For paper four I decided to focus on the #Gamergate scandal. To find some information to support my claims I did several things. To find my first source, an article on NPR I went to the SDSU library ProQuest database and searched “online and harassment”, and “Gamergate and solutions”. I also happened to Google it, and since this particular piece showed up on the both ways I researched articles I decided it was worth a read. In ProQuest I continued scrolling down and looking through the thousands of search results that popped up until I found a magazine article called, Girls vs. Trolls. Finally the last magazine article I had procured from the thousands of ProQuest articles on online harassment, law cases and such I found another article called Mad Men.(Sholeh)

Searching for sources to use in an academic paper• Your best option is usually going to the library and talking to a

real live human – a research librarian. S/he will be able to help you figure out which situations or assignments warrant the use of particular sources.

• S/he will be able to help you navigate periodicals, databases, online searching, and how each of those differs from the others.  S/he can explain why library databases are good, but Google may be a better bet for some types of information.

• It’s usually a good idea to google an author's name in order to see where they work, what else they've written, their resume, the nature of the publication, the organization publishing the text, the date of publication, whether it’s been cited, etc. This helps you understand the rhetorical situation and identify some elements of credibility.

Beyond Basic Search• What are some “sophisticated” ways of using google (and

similar search engines) for research purposes?• Did you know that you can do a kind of meta-search, or

“search people’s searches” in order to create data of your own that can be used in your papers?

• “Google trends” – can be used to help identify flu outbreaks, purchase patterns, social trends, etc. Consider Stephens-Davidowitz’s work on google searches mentioning child abuse. https://www.google.com/trends/

Stephens-Davidowitz: using Google Trends for Social Analysis• From 2006 to 2009, the number of cases [of child abuse]

reported to child protective services decreased by 1 percent nationally. Remarkably, the biggest drops were in the states hardest hit by the recession.

• “The first clue that the official statistics were misleading comes from looking at the most extreme forms of abuse and neglect, which are least susceptible to reporting pressures: child-fatality rates. During the downturn, there was a comparative increase in these rates in states that were hardest hit by the recession. From 2006 to 2009, Nevada’s fatality rate from abuse or neglect rose 50 percent.”

Searching Google searches

• “But child fatalities are, thankfully, rare. I also used a novel technique for studying child maltreatment: an analysis of anonymous, aggregate Google searches.”  These searches included “My dad hit me” or “Why did my father beat me?”

• I also examined a more common class of Google queries: those that include the words “child abuse” or “child neglect.” In some sense, this Google data is like a survey of how many people suspected child maltreatment at a given time. 

Google Trends data from February 2014 to February 2015

Top U.S. Searches 2014 Top 2014 Searches by State

Patterns in searches for drugs (Adderall increases during finals weeks)

Ngram Viewer• Google Ngram viewer lets you search the frequency of

words in books. https://books.google.com/ngrams • This can also be used for various kinds of research.

Consider, for example, what this search of books for the term “vampire” suggests:

Using Ngram to Detect censorship and suppression• “Suppression of a person or an idea leaves quantifiable

fingerprints (25). For instance, Nazi censorship of the Jewish artist Marc Chagall is evident by comparing the frequency of “Marc Chagall” in English and in German books (Fig. 4A). In both languages, there is a rapid ascent starting in the late 1910s (when Chagall was in his early 30s). In English, the ascent continues. But in German, the artist’s popularity decreases, reaching a nadir from 1936 to 1944, when his full name appears only once. (In contrast, from 1946 to 1954, “Marc Chagall” appears nearly 100 times in the German corpus.) Such examples are found in many countries, including Russia (Trotsky), China (Tiananmen Square), and the United States (the Hollywood Ten, blacklisted in 1947)”

Quantitative Analysis of Culture Using Millions of Digitized Books. Jean-Baptiste Michel* et al, Science 331 (2011)

Ngram viewer as gateway to academic tools and databases• The NEH-funded, 400 million word Corpus of Historical

American English (freely available at http://corpus.byu.edu/coha) allows for a much wider ranges of searches. Besides frequency lists like Google Books (with essentially the same results), a simple 2-3 second search can find changes in word meaning and usage (e.g. gay, care, web; or what we're saying about any topic over time), grammatical changes, and it can find *all words* that are more frequent in one period than another (rather than one by one, as with Google Books), as well as much more.

Archive.org – search the web’s past, analyze changes, create collections of content

• Digital Literacy Materials to Use with Unit 2• As an exercise in digital literacy you could have students

look at the site GIBill.com. This was a site set up by a group of for-profit colleges designed to persuade  veterans to enroll in for-profit schools. It was shut down by the federal government as it was deemed to be a deceptive site that tricked veterans into thinking itwas organized by the government, and was primarily informational and educational. The site has now been replaced by this message:

• Using the archive.org site you can go back in time and see the GIBill.com site. For example: https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://gibill.com

• Consider these snapshots of the siteJan 29, 2011 https://web.archive.org/web/20110129071743/http://www.gibill.com/ and see the FAQ section (what seems missing?)

• Dec 28 2011: https://web.archive.org/web/20111228165411/http://www.gibill.com/

• Jun 27 2012 https://web.archive.org/web/20120627203241/http://www.gibill.com/

• You can ask students to consider how the site works to persuade its audience, and why the government might have objected to some  of the strategies used. It might be interesting to compare the GIBill.com site with the department of veterans affairs site that  has replaced it, http://www.benefits.va.gov/gibill/. 

GIBill.com now redirects to Veteran’s Affairs

Searching Internet Archive for web sites that have been deleted (& fact check claims)

• Curation, Lifestreaming & Personal Learning Networks

• Google advertisement - example of lifestreaming and self curation 

• Twitter and self curation

Social Search• Create a professional facebook page and use it to “friend”

organizations and people related to your area of study, your future profession, or work interests.

• Locate the web sites for organizations related to your area of study, profession, or work interests.

• These sites typically have a “resources” page. These resources often include email lists (listservs), blogs, online groups, etc., you can join.

• Many sites and blogs allow you to “subscribe” to them so that you will receive an email when a new post is made. With many subscriptions you can specify topics to subscribe to, in order to customize what you receive.

• Consider professional networking sites like linkedin

Social Search• Reddit is an online community with many “sub-reddits.”

Some sub-reddits discuss academic subjects. You can join, ask questions, answer questions, search previous questions and answers, discuss issues related to you field, etc.

• Many sub-reddits focus on science, engineering, and professional fields. But there are also humanities sub-reddits. E.g. philosophy: http://www.reddit.com/r/philosophy/

Social Search, Personal Learning Networks & Curation• Social bookmarks• RSS Feeds• Twitter• Blogs• Evernote• “Dashboards” to organize things

• Many writers, professors, professionals, organizations, and “thought leaders” write blogs.

Becoming a search ninja• You can search by site, date range, exact words in a phrase, file type, “exclusions,” etc. E.g.

Getting to the Advanced Search page

• Google now makes it hard to find. You can

• Go directly: www.google.com/advanced_search,

or

• Do a regular google search. Then click the gear icon n in the top right corner of a search results page and select  Advanced Search (you have to search google once using regular search, then the advanced option will appear).

Google Scholar• Google scholar http://scholar.google.com

Provides a simple way to search broadly for scholarly literature, including articles, theses, books and more from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites.

• See the “advanced settings” option.• Click Cited by to see articles that have cited your

reference – helps you find similar research.• Can specify date, save results, get citation info for your

works cited page, etc. • For more on google scholar see handouts, wiki resources,

and http://www.powersearchingwithgoogle.com/

Google Scholar

The “Cited By” link

Citations & Google Scholar• If you click on Cite, Google Scholar will automatically format the article into citations for

a bibliography; choose from MLA, APA, and Chicago Style. Google Scholar also has the ability to import citations into a bibliography manager. To adjust the bibliography manager setting, visit thesettings page and select your preferred citation format in the "Bibliography Manager" section.

• See SDSU library handout “Google Scholar Tips” by Carolyn Baber to see how google scholar can be configured to work with the SDSU library.

Critical digital literacy• Who owns a site?

• The WHOIS Lookup https://www.whois.net/ “WHOIS” is the utility that is used to check or find out the information about a domain name. This gives not only the information of the registrant but also the administrative contact, billing contact, technical contact, domain expiration date and original registration date.

• http://www.online-tech-tips.com/cool-websites/find-out-who-owns-a-website/ (Note – it’s possible to pay to keep some information private – yet that itself may be revealing)

• Video: “Find, Check, Search, Look Up Who Owns A Website”

• TWITTER - A GIFT ECONOMY• When I tweet, I try to include three things in each tweet: a

short statement, a link, and a hashtag. For example, let’s say you found a great online journal you wanted to share. Your tweet might look like this:

• “And then think of the people you follow on Twitter as talented, tireless research assistants who ask nothing from you. You don’t have to respond to their tweets. You don’t have to tweet yourself. You don’t even have to check in regularly. But, when you’re ready, the tweets of the people you’re following will be out there waiting for you.”

• https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AiftIdjCeWSXdDRLRzNsVktUUGJpRWJhdUlWLS1Genc#gid=0