4. Using The Internet For Research
There are two types of searches that can be performed on the Internet. The first is a search for written documents, like books, articles or manuscripts. The purpose of this search is to locate the written documents and then obtain them without having to travel all over the country (or the world). The second type of search is for resources on the web. This type of search locates documents that you can view on your computer screen. While both searches are similar, there are some unique aspects of each.
Internet Searches
Searching for information on-line casts the largest net into what is available. Unlike a library, or the phone book, information on the Internet is not organized or categorized in any systematic fashion. It would be nearly impossible to browse the Internet by simply logging on and typing in addresses, hoping to find what you are looking for. Therefore, it is essential to use some sort of search engine (like Yahoo, Altavista, etc.) or parent site (like the history department home page) to do the browsing for you. After you have learned how to use the history department web site and the various search engines, you can decide which system works most effectively for you.
General Research: Search Engines
Begin with a key word. Though each search engine organizes information slightly differently, most rely on key words that appear in the text of the web site. For example, a search for the word history may bring up actual webpages devoted to history, but it could also find information on the history of computers, strawberry pie recipes or allergy medicine development. Choose your key word carefully and be as specific as possible. If you are searching for the speeches of Martin Luther King Jr., search using that exact phrase.
Choosing a Search Engine
The following web sites are a few of the most popular. Included in the list are links to pages which will help you use the selected sites most effectively.
- Alta Vista
- http://www.altavista.digital.com
Access Alta Vista's search tips through http://www.altavista.digital.com/av/content/about.htm
- Excite
- http://excite.com Excite offers
excellent search tips through http://www.excite.com/Info/searching.html?a-tip-t
- Hot Bot
- http://www.hotbot.com
- Infoseek
- http://guide.infoseek.com.
Infoseek's search hints are at http://guide.infoseek.com/Help?pg=Homettelp.html
- List of Lists
- http://www.einet.net/GJ/lists.html
- Look Smart
- http://www.looksmart.com
- Lycos
- http://www.lycos.com. Lycos offers
search help at http://www.lycos.com/help
- Magellan
- http://www.mckinley.com
- Nexor
- also offers an searchable archive of web sites: http://web.nexor.co.uk/public/welcome.html
- Netscape Netcenter
- http://www.netscape.com
- Northern Light
- http://www.nlsearch.com. Northen
Light also offers searches of journals, book reviews, and other printed
resources. Northern Light's help is at http://www.nlsearch.com/docs/prod_help.htm#simplesearch
- SEARCH.COM
- 250 Search Engines used together: http://www.search.com
- Starting Point
- indexes by subject: http://www.stpt.com
- UnCover:
- http://uncweb.carl.org.Journals,
articles, and book reviews on-line.
- The Web Crawler
- http://webcrawler.com
- WWW Virtual Library Subject Catalog:
- http://.org/pub/DataSources/bySubject/VL/Overview.html
- WWW Virtual Library Subject Overview
- http://www.w3.org/pub/DataSources/bySubject/Overview.html
- WWW Virtual Library List of Registered WWW Servers
- http://www.w3.org/hypertext/DataSources/VWWWV/Servers.html
- WWWW: The World Wide Web Worm
- http://wwww.cs.colorado.edu/wwww
- Yahoo
- http://yahoo.com. Yahoo offers help and excellent general information on using the Internet at http://howto.yahoo.com/resources/tips_and_tricks
General Search Tips
- Use lower case letters in your search. If you use upper case letters, most search engines will assume that you want an exact match. For example, "I have a Dream," will only return sites that also capitalize Dream. However, by using lower case letters, search engines will find ALL of the sites with the word "dream," whether capitalized or in lower case.
- If you’re searching for the speech with the phrase, " I have a dream," you can enter the exact wording, with quotes around it and the search screen will find sites that contain that phrase exactly.
Locating Information On-line
Once you have located a search engine, put in your key word and pushed the Enter key, the screen will fill with possible web sites. The sites will be titled and hyperlinked, usually with a short description of their contents. Generally they come up in order according to how closely they match your request. Following our example, a site that is devoted to the speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. will come up first, usually with a 97% next to the description to indicate how closely it fits your research. Before you start looking at each site and taking the information for your research project, consider the content of the webpages you’ve located. Search engines will return web sites that fill your request regardless of the accuracy of the information.
Like
the world of printed material, the reader must decide if an article from
a tabloid newspaper is more effective evidence than one from the New York
Times. The vastness of the Internet DOES NOT remove the researcher
from the responsibility of choosing information carefully. Following are a few suggestions to assist in your web search:
Many organizations publish on the web. Newspapers, magazines, and scholarly journals, as well as radio and television programs are published on the web. If you trust the New York Times as a printed source, then you should be able to trust their on-line editions as well.
Every time you access a new web site, check to see if there is a sponsor or an author listed. In the case of Dr. King JR’s speeches, ascertain who put them on the web. If you access a page that does not have an author listed, look at the basic domain of the site. For example, if you’ve questioned the legitimacy of the UCCS history site and want to know more about the organization that put this site on the web, you could go from the history department web site, http://web.uccs.edu/~history/default.htm, back to the basic domain of http://web.uccs.edu/ and see that the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs is indeed a very fine and credible institution. If you are not sure if you have found a reliable source, check the domain of the address (see Part 1. Basics for an explanation of the term domain).
While an .edu (educational), .gov (government), or .mil (military) domain will not guarantee accuracy on the sites they sponsor, there is a greater chance that these sites will be overseen and even edited by the sponsor of the site. Educational sites will generally include personal sites of students, professors and staff which are not edited, but these sites can also yield valuable information and links for further research. A site at a .com or .org can be a credible site as well. The key is to assess the information on-line just as carefully as you would a printed source. Once you have found information for your research project, read and understand Part 2 "Plagiarism and The Illegal Use of Material." It is essential to assure that your hard-earned research is presented correctly in your paper.
Remember!!!
- Search engines search by words in the text, or in the general content of a web site.
- Use lower case letters in general searches and upper case letters and quotation marks for specific searches.
- Record web site addresses as you search to assure that you can document information for research projects.
- Domain names describe the nature of the web site host or the geographic location of the host.
- Overseas we sites can take longer to load then domestic sites.
- The vastness of the Internet does not remove the researcher from the responsibility of choosing information carefully. Like the world of printed material, the reader will have to decide if an article from a tabloid newspaper is more effective evidence than the New York Times.