Conducting Online Research
Conducting Online Research
Conducting Online Research
Research
Effective Online Research Strategies
Overview
• For effective online research:
– know available search tools
– understand how tools work
– know how to use tools
– evaluate results found with tools
Online Research
• Visible Web:
content can be found using freely accessible
search engines such as Google
• Invisible Web:
content not found by general search engines
Invisible Web vs. Visible Web:
Practice
1. Write a topic on a piece of paper
2. Exchange it with a partner
3. Run one search in a general search engine
such as Google
4. Run another search using a library research
tool, such as JSTOR, EBSCOHOST, or
Megasearch
5. Discuss the kinds of results each search
turned up
Web Search Tools
• Search Engines
– list results based on entered keywords
• Web Directories
– offer categories for users to choose from
• Metasearch Engines
– combine results from multiple search engines
Search Engine Results
• Based on:
– site’s amount of information
– number of linking sites
– number of people who choose a link
– length of time in search engine database
– code of the site
Search Engine Results
• Different search engines might return different
results in a different order
• Can include results from paying advertisers:
Search Engine Results: Practice