Internet research

"DAFGS"

Why is Google good?

• fast
• good indexing
• up to date

There are others, and we all have our favourites...

Search Hints:

the earlier a word occurs in your search string, the more importance is attached to it

+ means definitely include this word

- means definitely exclude this word

"stuff in quotes" is treated as a chunk of text, not individual items - useful for narrowing down searches

At the bottom of the page, it looks like:

search within results

use the "search within results" to refine a search

If it's not in the first few pages that Google returns, rephrase it

Quality assessment:

the internet has all the knowledge of the world on it - and all the crap. And there's much more crap than knowledge.

Need to verify the veracity of the information you get

• Look at the URL - if it's a sensible looking domain and an official page, that's good. If it's an individuals page on a general webspace system, that's not so good
• Google's indexing helps
• if it comes up more than once under different searches, that's good
• The first few lines in Google help set the tone - ditto for a page
• The higher up it is, the more relevant it is - very little good and relevant appears after 5 or so screenfuls

Bookmark stuff that looks relevant, as you'll often find yourself wanting to go back to something you found earlier. Delete these when finished as you'll probably never use them again!

What to do with material once you've got it?

Read it all - get the different variations clear in your mind. Map it out, scribbling down notes.

Write from your notes.

If there's a particularly good quote, then use it by all means, but reference it (even if only via a URL, and then put "accessed on date")

Research tools

Google Scholar

Excellent for returning research articles and so on. Doesn't have the breadth (or distractions) of Google itself.

CiteSeer

Cross-referencing digital library

Web of Knowledge

Effective digital library for proceedings and journals