Using the Internet for Research

December 10, 2008 — jmeester

As you go into high school and collage you will be asked to do research for papers and projects, so you will end up using the internet quite often. And jobs may require research as well. You might want to uses other recourses as well such as magazines, books, articles, and the web.

Which sources and you find online?  Which sources give you the right info to lead you to good sites?

Well, magazine articles are written by journalists and are more toward the adults.

Books cover many areas, With lots of facts.

When you think about libraries the first things that come to mind are probably books and magazines Libraries also provide access to resources like, magazine articles, periodical indexes, and online encyclopedias.

shylla

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Critically Evaluating Web Information

April 30, 2008 — jenandrews

The internet is accesible to anybody, and within the internet is a valuable resource of good information. However, there is nobody out there to tell you what is “good” information or whether the site you’re looking at is reliable. Therefore, you must develop the skill of asking the right questions (the who, what, when, where, why, and how) to determine if the info you’re looking at is really true and unbiased.

WHO: Ask yourself who is responsible for the site, and what are their credentials? Can you contact that author by email or phone? Is there a link to information about them?

WHY and WHERE: Every web page has a sponsor, publisher, or creater. The ending of a web address, or the domain, can give you a clue as to the purpose of the website. A few of the most common domain names are:

.com (commercial organizations)
.org (usually non-profit organizations, but not always)
.edu (educational institutions)
.gov (government)
.net (organizations involved in Internet services)
.int (international organizations)

It is important to know the sponsor so you can detect bias that may try to persuade you rather than inform you. Keep in mind that this is not as easy as it sounds.

WHAT: What is the information? Is it presented clearly? Accurately? Is it professional or too professional? Is it fact or opinion?

HOW: How is the information put together? Is the grammar and spelling correct? Are the images too distracting? Is there a fee to use the site? Do you have to register?

For a more in-depth explaination of evaluatin information, visit this link: http://www.library.jhu.edu/researchhelp/general/evaluating/

A question that arose in my mind was what is the most reliable domain name if you are looking for correct, accurate, unbiased information?

Posted in Evaluating Information. 5 Comments »

How To: Copy and Paste

April 28, 2008 — lanie11

The first key to learn how to copy and paste, is to open a word document or a word processor like a note pad or a word pad. Then minimize the window to the bottom of the desk top(for easy acess) and when you find information that you might need for research and you only want part of the article then you select (high light) the info that you want with your mouse. That way you only get the parts that you need.look at your menu bar and choose edit.Click on copy or you can use an easier command CTRL + C. now go down to your informatoion pad at the bottom part of your desktop and open it. Continue to go to the edit in your menu bar.Then click paste. then keep reasearching until you have copy and pasted all that tou need!One thing i learned from this is that there are more than one possible way to copy and paste…..When i use copy and paste i don’t go to edit i just select it and hit the right key on my cursor first go to copy and pull my word document up and paste my info by again hitting the right key and going down to paste.There was one question that arose in my mind and it was….are there any more ways than two to copy and paste, maybe three or ever four? ibelieve that this was beneficial to me in the way that now i can have more than one technique to copy and paste!!!!!think about this…… if you don’t want to copy and paste you can go to google docs.it’s an online tool you can access from anywhere in the world. amazing huh this is a great online tool if you have to do a school group project and you don’t want to e-mail. everyone in the group can easily access it and combine it. so you should try both of them. if you don’t want to do one there’s always the other way!!!!! I’m so glad I learned these tools to help me out in the future!!!!!!

Posted in Online Tools. Tags: , , , , , . 3 Comments »

Browserware

April 28, 2008 — bmcneely

                         Something new that I have learned from this topic which is of Online Tools, Browserware, is that there are many different types of programs that just require a browser to run. For example, there is the 3D Textmaker: which chooses the color, font, & dimensions to make a rotating text banner. Another is Gifworks: which lets you create your own special effects with any GIF, as well as animated ones. You can colorize it, optimize it, resize it, and jazzercise it, and then you can save it so you can take it with you! A question that arose in my mind was that what if someone doesn’t know how to use a browser, or going even further, what if someone doesn’t understand how a browser is used, or how it works? Where, or how would they go about finding out how to use one, to find out what it is, or how it works. Also, learning about this topic would be beneficial to my future because if I get into a business that deals with the use of computers, then I will already know some of the programs that are included in the browseware programs. Also, I will also know what some of them mean.  

Posted in Online Tools. Tags: , , . 1 Comment »

Types Of Search Databases

April 28, 2008 — jenandrews

Everybody has heard of google.com. But did you know that there are many other ways of gathering information on the internet other than your typical search engine? For example, there are directories, which organize websites into certain categories. Because they are run by people, there are fewer web sites available than with search engines. A few good directory links are: Britannica,  Internet Public Library , Open Directory

Another method of searching is called a metasearch engine, and work by sending your keywords to several search engines to get the combined search results. A few types of search engines are: DogPile, Ixquick , Metacrawler, ProFusion, SavvySearch. Keep in mind that metasearch engines can’t handle complex searches, so keep your search terms short and simple.

In addition, if you are still having trouble finding information, you can try a portal, which is a site that is intended to have so much information that you would rarely need to browse anywhere else on the web. A few portals are: Yahoo!, NBCi, Lycos, Go.com, Excite 

With so many options, I wonder which type of searching is most effective? Which is easiest to use? Which has the most reliable information?

If you still cannot find the information that you need and you have tried all the above types of search methods, go to this link here: http://www.robertniles.com/data/. It will provide you with a list of categories and links on where to find that information.

Posted in Search Engines. 2 Comments »

search engines

April 25, 2008 — kmccarthy

Search engines are a great way to find out information on a certain topic. Use a search engine in research projects and papers.they use software called spiders, web crawlers, or bots to collect information on millions of web pages. Not all search engines are the same, some may not give you the information you need, and others will. search engines just use key words from your search and bring up web pages that use those word so many will give you information on things you do not need; for example if you wanted to find information on doctor martin Luther king junior, it might bring you web pages on his father, the schools named after him, quotes he said, and how he made differences in history. I have always thought that the first page of a search engine meant that it had the best information but found out that going go other pages will give me some good information also. Some great search engines that I prefer to use are Google, ask.com, yahoo, and answers.com. I know many things about search engines but would still like to know more, for example, if I don’t get what I am looking for, how do I figure out how to word my searches correctly?

Posted in Uncategorized. 2 Comments »

Its a Decimal System

April 25, 2008 — egoncalves

The Dewey Decimal System is one of the many ways to help you find books on the subject you are researching.To find books in the library means to understand the way books are placed in the library and what shelves.

In 1876, Melvil Dewey wanted to find a way that could organize books in a library so they were easier to find.  As a librarian, Melvil divided the library into ten general categories, which he then divided them into smaller and smaller topics. He wanted to find a way to put all the books on the same subject together in an organized fashion. Hence the system can be summarized in 10 main classes, 100 divisions and 1000 sections.

Call Number:

the call number of a book is its address in the library. Usually the call number is located on the spine of the book and has at least two lines. It is sometimes letters and not numbers at all. This website shows all there is to know about call numbers. http://old.oslis.org/secondary/index.php?page=searchDeweyCall

Posted in Dewey Decimal System. 4 Comments »

Plagiarism…

April 24, 2008 — aboeve

Plagiarism is an illegal thing to do, if caught, it can result in no credit on an assignment or even faliure of the course you are in. It is taking other people’s work and putting it into your writing without acknowledging the author or claiming it as your own. When you plagiarize you take other people’s thoughts and writing and say that you thought of it yourself and take entire credit for the work. It is very easy to plagerize when researching on the internet because of the ability that you have to copy and paste into another document. Though it is also very simple for a teacher or instructor to check to see if the writing is actually your own because they can also copy and paste a piece of the writing into a search engine (such as google) and if a link pops up to another site with the exact wording you used, it is quite obvious that you have plagerized.

Plagiarism can come in many forms. These can be quotes taken from a document, paraphrasing a borrowed idea without acknowledgment of the real work or copying a previous paper. Whether it was another classmate or even your own past assignment. To avoid the consequences of plagiarizing, when copying someone elses work make a reference to where you recieved that knowledge or placing quotations around the work and citing the source. Something I learned that will help me in the future is that even copying your own previous work can be considered plagiarizing and you need to make sure that you cite every source even if its your own!

For more help on this subject click here.

Posted in Plagerism. Tags: . 4 Comments »

Boolean Operators

April 24, 2008 — jenandrews

          When you are using an online search engine, you can filter your results using the words AND, OR, or NOT in your search. This is called a Boolean Operator. Using AND will broaden your search; for example: if you type in North Carolina AND prohibition, you will get results containing both “North Carolina” and “prohibition“. If you use OR, it will broaden your results; if you search for Zimbabwe OR Rhodesia, you with get results containing either just “Zimbabwe“, just “Rhodesia“, or both. Using NOT in a search narrows the results; typing in mexico NOT new mexico will give you items containing Mexico but not New Mexico

          For a more detailed description of Boolean operators, you can visit this link: http://www.csa.com/help/Search_Tools/boolean_operators.html

          A question that arose in my mind was if boolean operators work on ALL search engines.

          This information is beneficial to me in future studies because it will make searching online alot easier.

Posted in Boolean Operators. 2 Comments »

Gathering And Organizing Information

April 22, 2008 — cbush42

From what I have learned the way you gather and organize all of the information that you find is the way that you make that information become your own and not somebody elses. Not plagiarizing is also a good way not to do this. In order to avoid plagiarizing before you write down or type out your information you should do these three things: summarize, interpret,and abbreviate your information so it looks like your own work and so you dont get in trouble for plagiarizing. another thing i have learned is that information is usually in three different categories. Categories such as simple facts, ideas and opinions, and stuff you dont understand. Simple facts are basically the who, where, and when of everything and are usually found in all of your sources. Ideas and opinions are everything that is not in the entire simple facts section of your information. Than the stuff you dont understand you should not use at all unless you get to the point where you do understand it. A few ways to organize your information that are really easy to do are to put your information on notecards, paper, and organizers. This will help keep your information organized and hard to plagiarize.

Posted in Gathering and Organizing. Tags: . 4 Comments »
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