INTRODUCTION

 Research needs and requirements vary with each assignment,

project, or paper. Although there is no single” right” way to
conduct research, certain methods and skills can make your
research efforts efficient and effective.
 Research is the easiest way to use when you do your
assignments it can make your assignment done easily.
What is internet research?
 Internet Research’s
Strength and Weaknesses
 Searching is faster than any other medium. For
example when you are searching within a book
in the library, it takes a long
time to search about a certain topic.
 Internet researching will save user’s physical
distance. For example you need to go to library and
find the information about topics. It will require
you to spend your physical things.
 You can share information with other people very
quickly.

 Quality of information is better than any other

medium

 Strength includes speed, immediacy, and a

complete disregard for physical distance.
Possibility of leak of someone's personal infor mation
and it can make negative effect in your life
There is so many incorrect infor mation
You can get many har mful objects such as advertising.
Weaknesses include unrecognized bias, difficulties in
verifying a writer’s credentials ( and therefore the
accuracy or pertinence of the infor mation obtained).
 Six Online Research Skills
1. CHECK YOUR SOURCES

Evaluating Web Resources

• Accuracy
• Currency
• Authority
• Coverage/Relevance
• Objectively
 Authority
• How do you know if the information you find by
searching the internet is valid?

• Much of the information: placed without

verification.

• The authors of the different sources may well

have copied or adapted information from each
other.
 Authority
Let’s start by considering authority.
1. Who is the author?

Questions to answer:

a. Are they an expert?

b. Have they produced other material on the subject?
c. Has their work been cited by others?
d. What organisation do they work for?
e. Do they have controversial views on a particular subject?
 Accuracy
Use:
reputable sources;
Examples: websites, journals and other sources written by
organisations or individuals who are respected within
their discipline.

feel confident using information:

authority,
objectivity and
relevance
 Have your say:

Give an example of a website that you consider to be

reputable. Why do you trust the information provided on
this site?
 Timeliness
• The date when information is produced or
published can be an important aspect of
quality.
• This exercise will help you to decide
whether a source needs to be up to date
in order to be of use.
Which of the following need to be up to date in order to be
valid for research purposes:
Choose as many as you like
 In some cases it is difficult to ascertain the true ‘age’ of
information:
Problems to address:

1. No publication date
2. No indication of when the information was updated
3. The date of the publication may not reflect the date the
information was produced, (it can take time for research
to be reviewed before it is published)

When evaluating the timeliness of information consider:

1. Is it clear when the information was produced?

2. Does the date of the information meet your
requirements?
3. Is it obsolete (has it been superseded)?
 Have your say:

• In many cases it is important that the

information you use is up to date, but on
occasion you may specifically require
historical information.

• Share your experiences of searching for

information from a specific time period;
where did you search and was your
search successful?
 Relevance
• It’s important to confirm that the resource
you have selected is relevant to your
needs before you invest valuable time
reading it in detail.

• Even if the information you find is of top

academic quality, it does not mean that it
is relevant or appropriate for your
research.
• Take some time to skim read the information
considering the following:

• Is the information at the appropriate level of

depth for your needs?
• Is the emphasis of the topic appropriate for your
needs?
• Does it relate to areas that you are interested in?
• Is it relevant in terms of geographical location
(does it relate to countries/areas you are
interested in)?
Have your say:

You can waste precious time reading

irrelevant texts; share your tips for
ensuring that the information you select to
read is relevant to your research.
 Selecting what to read
• As you have seen in the previous steps, when
you search the internet there will be some
information that can clearly be discounted.

• However, you may still be left with a large

number of possible sources to investigate. It is
unlikely that you will have time to read all the
relevant texts that you find about a topic, so
you’ll often need to make choices and be
selective about what you read in-depth.
 Think about:
• Quality and not quantity
• Choosing reliable, up-to-date sources
• Starting with a text that can give you an
overview of a subject which is new to you.

• In the next exercise you will consider four

different texts and select what to read in a
number of different circumstances. The example
uses possible texts with information about the
topic: “Is sugar bad for human health?” Click on
the image or the link to assess this exercise.
1. Check Your Sources
The Skill: Evaluating information found in your sources on the basis of accuracy,
validity, appropriateness for needs, importance, and social and cultural context
The Challenge: While most kids know not to believe everything they read online, the
majority also don’t take the time to fully evaluate their sources, according to the John
D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The same study showed that, on average,
kids as young as 11 rate themselves as quite proficient Internet users, which may
inflate their confidence.
The Solution: As a class, discuss the benchmarks for evaluating a website: currency
(Is the information up to date?), security (Does the site ask for too much personal
information or prompt virus warnings?), scope (Is the information in-depth?), and
authority (Does the information come from a trusted expert?). Challenge partners to
find one site that meets these benchmarks and one site that fails to do so. During
research projects, encourage students to check the benchmarks off a list for each of
the sources they use.
2. ASK GOOD QUESTIONS

• The answers you get in the literature depend on the questions

you pose” –Margaret Atwood
2. Ask Good Questions
The Skills: Developing and refining search queries to get better research results
The Challenge: Students will enter a search term, say, “Abraham Lincoln,” and comb
through pages of results that aren’t related to their research (think Lincoln beards, Lincoln
Logs), rather than narrowing their original query (“Lincoln assassination”).
The Solution: Give small groups three search terms each, ranging from the general to the
specific (e.g., “national parks,” “Yellowstone,” and “Yellowstone founding date”). Ask the
groups to record how many results are returned for each term. Discuss how specificity can
narrow their search to the results they need. Next, challenge groups to come up with three
alternate search terms for the most specific item on their lists. (For the Yellowstone
example, alternate terms might include “When was Yellowstone founded?” “history of
Yellowstone” and “Who founded Yellowstone?”) Compare the results and discuss how
changing a few words can generate different information.
3. GO BEYOND THE SURFACE

• Persistence by continuing to pursue infor mation to gain a

broad perspective.

-Sweet Search Engine

3. Go Beyond the Surface
The Skill: Displaying persistence by continuing to pursue information to gain a broad
perspective
The Challenge: Studies have shown that when using a search engine, kids often stop at
the first search result, which they deem the most trustworthy.
The Solution: Invite students to create fact trees about whatever they are researching.
The starting question is the root of the tree — for example, “How many planets are in the
Milky Way?” Then, on branches coming out from the tree, students write facts or pieces
of information that answer the question (“Scientists don’t know the exact number,” “There
could be billions”). The catch is that each fact must come from a separate, documented
source. Encourage students to find at least 10 sources of information to complete their
fact trees.
- iSeek

• it is a search engine for students,

teachers, and administrators.
• it draws from the trusted resources
from universities, government , and
established non-commercial site
 4. Be Patient
• Displaying emotional resilience by persisting in
information searching despite challenges
4. Be Patient
The Skill: Displaying emotional resilience by persisting in information searching
despite challenges
The Challenge: Today’s students are used to information on demand. So when they
can’t find the answers to their questions after they’ve spent a few minutes poking
around online, they may grow frustrated and throw in the towel.
The Solution: Challenge teams to come up with a well-researched answer to a
question that isn’t “Google-able.” Opinion questions about popular culture work well
for this activity. For example, “Who’s the best actor ever to have played James
Bond?” “Which band is better: the Jonas Brothers or Justin Bieber?” Encourage
teams to use a wide variety of sources in answering their questions, including what
others have said, box office receipts, and awards. Determine a winner based on
which team presents the most convincing case.
 5. Respect Ownership
• Respecting intellectual property rights of creators
and producers
5. Respect Ownership
The Skill: Respecting intellectual property rights of creators and producers
The Challenge: Increasingly, young people don’t see piracy as stealing. One survey
found that 86 percent of teens felt music piracy was “morally acceptable.”
The Solution: Make it personal. Invite students to write about what it would feel like
to get a record deal, star in a movie, or have a book published. As a class, discuss
the emotions involved. Then introduce the idea of piracy. Ask, “How would you feel if
someone downloaded your music, movie, or book without paying for it?” You might
also talk about how it would feel to not get paid for other types of work, such as
working in an office or a school. How is piracy similar? How is it different?
 6. Use Your Networks

• Using social networks and information tools to

gather and share information
6. Use Your Networks
The Skill: Using social networks and information tools to gather and share information
The Challenge: Some kids don’t understand the line between sharing information and
plagiarizing it. A survey by plagiarism-prevention firm Turnitin found that the most widely
used sources for cribbed material are sites like Facebook, Wikipedia, and Ask.com.
The Solution: Talk to kids about when you might use social sites for research. Provide a list
of topics and have partners decide whether it would be a good idea to use these tools.
Suggested topics: your family’s countries of origin, the life of Alexander the Great, and the
events of September 11, 2001. What could members of your network contribute to each of
these discussions? How wouldn’t they be helpful? How would you include information that
friends and family share in your work?
Also explain that Wikipedia must be evaluated like any other website. In particular, students
should focus on the sources cited in a Wikipedia article and ensure these sources are
legitimate. You might have small groups analyze all of the sources for one Wikipedia article
for currency, authority, scope, and security. Emphasize that it’s usually better to go back to
the original source than to quote directly from Wikipedia.
Many people think of plagiarism as copying another's work or
borrowing someone else's original ideas. But terms like "copying"
and "borrowing" can disguise the seriousness of the offense:
According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, to
"plagiarize" means:
•to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own
•to use (another's production) without crediting the source
•to commit literary theft
•to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an
existing source
All of the following are considered plagiarism:
•turning in someone else's work as your own
•copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit
•failing to put a quotation in quotation marks
•giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation
•changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without
giving credit
•copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the
majority of your work, whether you give credit or not (see our section on
"fair use" rules)
Most cases of plagiarism can be avoided, however, by citing sources.
Simply acknowledging that certain material has been borrowed and
providing your audience with the information necessary to find that source is
usually enough to prevent plagiarism. See our section on citation for more
information on how to cite sources properly
What about images, videos, and music?
Using an image, video or piece of music in a work you have produced
without receiving proper permission or providing appropriate citation is
plagiarism. The following activities are very common in today’s society.
Despite their popularity, they still count as plagiarism.
•Copying media (especially images) from other websites to paste them into
your own papers or websites.
•Making a video using footage from others’ videos or using copyrighted
music as part of the soundtrack.
•Performing another person’s copyrighted music (i.e., playing a cover).
•Composing a piece of music that borrows heavily from another composition.
Certainly, these media pose situations in which it can be challenging to determine
whether or not the copyrights of a work are being violated. For example:
•A photograph or scan of a copyrighted image (for example: using a photograph of a
book cover to represent that book on one’s website)
•Recording audio or video in which copyrighted music or video is playing in the
background.
•Re-creating a visual work in the same medium. (for example: shooting a
photograph that uses the same composition and subject matter as someone else’s
photograph)
•Re-creating a visual work in a different medium (for example: making a painting that
closely resembles another person’s photograph).
•Re-mixing or altering copyrighted images, video or audio, even if done so in an
original way.
The legality of these situations, and others, would be dependent upon the intent and
context within which they are produced. The two safest approaches to take in
regards to these situations is: 1) Avoid them altogether or 2) Confirm the works’
usage permissions and cite them properly.
 Search Engines

• - A computer program that searches documents

especially on the World Wide Web for a specified
words and provides a list of documents in which
they are found
 What are Search Engines
• What's your favourite search engine?

• For many of us, it is hard to imagine a

world without search engines.
• Search engines help you to identify
information online. With the help of
complex algorithms, they provide you with
a list of different sources from across the
web, chosen by the key words that you
have used. The resulting sources will be
ordered by the search engine based on
the key words from your ‘query’.
• Have your say:
• Explain why you use your chosen search
engine. What features do you like best
about it?
• Was there a search engine that you have
found as a result of this exercise that you
particularly like? What features of this
search engine do you find useful?
 Search Engines
• 1
• GOOGLE SCHOLAR
• This Google service is free to use, and allows you to access millions of
academic journal articles online.

• GOOGLE BOOKS
• This Google service is free to use, and allows you to access millions of books
online.

• BING IMAGES
• Search for images across the web. One of the great features of the Bing image
search is that it also gives you information about which images can be re-used
in your own work, or online.

• EUROPEANA COLLECTIONS
• Use Europeana Collections to discover thousands of cultural artworks,
artefacts, books, videos and sounds from across museums and galleries in
Europe.

• WORLDCAT
• WorldCat offers a great worldwide service allowing you to search for
information in more than 10,000 libraries worldwide.

• REFSEEK
• Refseek is a new service aiming to filter out general information from your web
searches, and prioritise academic sources.
 Understanding how to search
• Search engines are powerful tools, and
often a simple keyword search is all that is
required to get the results you need.
• Sometimes your search may not return
relevant results, or you might have to scan
through pages of results to find something
useful. There are a number of options to
help you limit the responses to those most
relevant to your search.
• We will consider some of the more
advanced options in the next step but
firstly it is important to understand how to
ask the right questions of your search
engine, to make your search as effective
as it can be.
• Search engines and databases use ‘operators’
(AND, OR and NOT) to allow you to combine
search terms in different combinations.

• You may have seen these operators before as

buttons or drop-down menus, especially in
databases. These ‘operators’ are extremely
powerful and using different combinations of
them drastically change the results that are
generated.
• Drawing on a topic that we will research
later this week let’s take a look at some
examples of how they work:
 AND
• AND reduces the number of results you retrieve and is
usually used to combine different concepts to make your
results more relevant. For example, when only wanting
information about the Shakespearean play ‘Richard III’.

• The shaded area in the middle represents what will be searched for whe
you combine two separate searches for Richard III AND Shakespeare. T
search will only return sources where both Richard III and Shakespeare
referenced.
 • OR increases the number of results you retrieve and is
OR usually used to combine synonyms to make your results
more comprehensive. For example, when wanting
information about Richard III and the War of the Roses.

• The shaded area inside both of these circles represents

what will be searched for when you combine two
separate searches for Richard III OR War of the Roses.
This search will return all sources for Richard III and all
sources for War of the Roses, including those instances
where a source references both searches.
 NOT reduces the number of results you retrieve by excluding a
N search term. It should be used with caution in case you
inadvertently exclude relevant references. For example, you may
O use this search when wanting information about Richard III but
specifically not wanting information relating to the
Shakespearean play ‘Richard III’.
T The shaded area represents what will be searched for when you
search for Richard III NOT Shakespeare. This search will return
all sources relating to Richard III except those that also reference
Shakespeare.

You may find that the search engine you use prefers a hyphen (-) to
be used in place of the ‘NOT’ operator. For example, ‘Richard III
-Shakespeare’.
 Have a go:
Many search engines will automatically use these
‘operators’ for you, but it is important to
understand how they work. Enter your searches
using the operators to see how it affects the
results.

Firstly recreate the searches illustrated in this step.

Try the same searches across a few search
engines to see how this changes your results
too.
Share your findings with your fellow learners.
Since MNHS has no internet connections, then
the output could be the possible querries
entered in your search engine.
 Objectives
1.To be able to identify feasible topic ideal
for further study/research

2.To write possible querries as a result of

using advance searching in the search
engine
 Advanced searching
Most search engines provide a range of advanced search
options.

These advanced options allow you to create more targeted

searches, helping you to find the most relevant
information quickly. Here are just some of the more
frequently used options.

Site search
You can restrict your search to within a specific website.
You can do this directly from the search bar by typing
site:yourwebsite.com or via the “site or domain” option
on the advanced search page.
 Exact phrase search
• You can restrict your search results to the
precise phrase that you enter. You can do
this directly from the search bar by putting
your search terms in quotation marks or
via the “this exact word or phrase” option
on the advanced search page.
 Date restrictions
• You can limit your search results to pages
published or updated within a specific
time-frame. You can do this by typing the
years you want separated by “..”, or in
Google from the “search tools” option
directly beneath the search bar; then click
“any time” -> “custom range”.
 FILE TYPE
• You can limit your search to results of a
specific file type. You can do this directly
from the search bar by typing (for
example) filetype:pdf, or via the “file type”
option on the advanced search page.
 Wildcard characters
• Wildcard characters can also prove useful
- you can use the asterisk to search for
words which begin with the same letters.

• Truncation - econ* will find results with

economy, economic, economical,
economies.
The question mark wildcard is often used to
search for alternative spellings.

urbani?ation will find results which have

either spelling – i.e.urbanization or
urbanisation.
 Have a go:
Try the examples in this step using your chosen
search engine, or one that you have recently
discovered. Either type the search query into the
search box or use the advanced search page.

We have provided a handy reference sheet for the

options included in this step. There is also a
document detailing how to make the most of
your keyword search, available in the
Downloads section below.