How do you find specific
information on the web?
What are keywords?
How can you do research on the web
effectively?
To answer these questions and more, read on
. . .
Search engines such as google.com and
yahoo.com are like librarians. Just as
you would ask a librarian to find you
information, so too do search engines find
information. Similar to your work
with a librarian, search engines are most
successful when your search question is
very precise and you use
keywords--number is no obstacle.
When a web site is registered with a search engine, keywords are
submitted
to identify the web site.
Also, words that are repeated throughout the web site
become keywords which in turn are used for
more precise identification.
So the clue to doing effective research is
to enter as many pertinent words
or concepts in the Search Box of the search
engine.
For example, you may be looking for a web
site that provides you with a recipe
for meat lasagna, 300 calories or
less. If
you enter recipe for lasagna, you will
have well over 100 recipes
for lasagna: some meat, some vegetable, some
fattening, others leaner.
It is a daunting task to wade through the identified web
sites—which are indicated by an introductory phrase with the font a
different color
from the descriptive text.
An
example:
-
meat lasagna recipes
using ground beef and cheese etc.
lasagna.com
Clicking on the web address (in green) will bring you to the relevant web site. Now
you have to sort out meat, 300 calories or less to get your precise information.
Had you entered recipes, meat lasagna, 300 calories or less, you would have
made your request precise and the search engine would do the sorting.
Another way of narrowing your search is to put precise phrases in quotation
marks. Say you are only interested in the "2008 St. Patrick’s Day parade." Put
this precise phrase in quotation marks. See what happens. Only those web sites
that have that exact phrase will appear. This is a second way to make your
search more relevant. Either way search engines are there to help you in sorting.
The best way to treat search engines is to provide them with as many precise
concepts as you can and you’ll be on your way to effective research on the web.
Earlier google.com and yahoo.com were featured as the most popular search
engines on the Net. But what if you want to use both search engines, do you
need to do two searches? Definitely not! Metasearch engines were made to
do just that. Try putting a phrase in www.dogpile.com or www.search.com
Presto! When the results appear, you will see some web sites are from “google”;
some are from “yahoo”; while others are from additional search engines.
Using a metasearch engine is a shortcut to doing effective research on the web.
Now that you have identified the web sites, you need to evaluate the quality of
each. 4 characteristics go into a good web site:
1. accuracy—does the author provide an email for you to contact him or her?
2. authority—what credentials does the author or organization have?
3. objectivity—for whom was it written or designed? Does the answer
suggest a bias?
4. currency—are there dead end links? When was the web page last
updated? (Jim Kapoun)
Quality
answers to these questions suggest a quality web site.
With
all these tools--search engines, metasearch engines, keywords,
precise concepts,
quotation marks and evaluation questions--you
can now
do effective research on the
web.
Can you answer these?
1. What
are the two most popular search engines?
2. How can you tell an introductory phrase to a web search result?
3. What is the role of precise concepts in search engines?
4. Name two metasearch engines.
5. What are the four characteristics of a quality web site?
Answers:
1. google.com & yahoo.com
2. The introductory phrase is a
different color font.
3. They narrow your search and
sort out web sites.
4. dogpile.com &
search.com
5. accuracy, authority,
objectivity, currency
Congratulations!
You have completed Course 2.
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