Internet Research: hints and tips
When searching for information on the web you must apply these checks before relying on any information.
This is often called the CRAAP test!!
Watch this video : Website Evaluation
When searching for information on the web you need to ask yourself some questions as to whether the information is accurate, reliable, authentic and trustworthy. Be critical. How can you tell if a site is reliable?
Watch this Brainpop video to help you also. ( Log on : dcsg Password: dcsg2014)
Work your way through this ppt below and try some of the activities.
Evaluate Currency, Accuracy and Purpose: watch these videos
Internet Searching: Google Search Tips
- Plan your search.
- Be specific
- Use nouns and correct spelling.
- Use the options to limit your search: only UK sites, only images, only English etc.
- Use the search engine’s advanced or help section
- Use keywords building up to 3-6 if possible and use phrases. Try to imagine the exact answer you are looking for and what keywords it would include. A group of terms is called a search string. Try building your search one term at a time, just as you would add beads to a string. You don’t need to add a + or the word and between the terms, but you must leave a space between each term and the next.
- Use Advanced Search
- Define in your search what format you need the information in ( text, images, statistics, videos, ppts etc)
- Check the authority of the author. Check domain names- .gov. ac.uk., edu etc
Use Google Scholar and Google Books for more academic information on the web.
Use Advanced Search which allows you to specify domain names e.g .ac.uk to obtain more academic results.
Boolean Searching?? What is it?
Boolean search terms allow us to filter our search results so we are more likely to find the websites that are useful to us. The basic Boolean search terms are:
- AND - which combines two or more keywords/phrases (e.g. apples AND oranges)
- NOT - which removes specific keywords/phrases (e.g. fruit NOT oranges)
- OR - which shows combined results for two or more keywords/phrases (e.g. apples OR oranges)
- "___" - which searches for a specific phrase
- (e.g. "apple pie")
Try www.kidzsearch.com/boolify/for a great intro to Boolean search terms.
Log on to a favourite site and ask yourself:
- Who is the author?
- Who is the publisher?
- What is the purpose of the site?
- Is the information biased?
- How many other sites link to this site?
- Who is paying for the site?
- Do they know what they are talking about? Why are they publishing this information? Is their information biased in any way? Who links to their site?
- What date was the last update posted?
If you cannot be sure about the answer to these questions, then perhaps it’s not a reliable source of information – but, like ANY publication, it might offer you information which is exactly right for your needs.
URLS : the website address should give you some indication of where the information has come from and how reliable it therefore is
- ac, .edu: academic or educational servers
- .co, .com: commercial servers
- .gov:government servers
- .org: non-governmental, non-profit making organisations
Try out this tutorial to help you develop your internet search skills:-
Symbols – most search engines use these:-
- “ “ for words used together, “acid rain” “Charles Dickens”
- + the word must be included, volcanoes +Asia
- - the word must be excluded, design –fashion
- * finds words beginning with those letters: comput* finds computers, computing etc.
- Only use capitals for proper names
Use google intelligently! Have a look at Google Guide and Google Help Sheet for advice on more effective internet searching
These are all real websites. See what you make of them!! Are they reliable?
You might want to make use of Deeperweb to help you with a more visual way of searching or Instagrok to help build a concept map of ideas.
Watch this Youtube Video on Advanced Google Search Tips
Search Engines: google is not the only one!