Transcript Internet research

Internet research
Types of searches
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“known item”
topical
exhaustive
current awareness
“One quick search” strategy
What’s out there?
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“raw materials”
not value-added
recent materials
better on human rights,
environment, than business-related
topics
lots of junk
“Cat and Girl” --Dorothy Gambrell
Search engines (SEs)
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index the web, create their own
database
scan their database when you
search
return results by relevance
cover different sets of webpages
work literally
semi-literal search engines
“Speed Bump” –David Coverly
Implications of how SEs work
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SEs can’t reach all data on the web
–”invisible web” (e.g., LexisOne requires
password; library catalogs require a search)
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Use more than one SE when can’t
find something, or when you need to
be exhaustive
New stuff can be hard to find
Alternatives to search engines
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Go where the news is (e.g., UN
News Service, EU Press Room,
government agencies)
Go where the databases are (library
catalogs, cases, statutes)
Research guides
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GlobaLex for foreign/international
law guides --
http://www.nyulawglobal.org/globalex/index.html
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ASIL Electronic Resources Guide for
international topics -http://www.asil.org/erghome.cfm
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LLRX.com for other
foreign/international law guides-http://www.llrx.com/international_law.html
Iterative searching
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you probably already do this
refine search by adding or
discarding terms
Specific info on how Google works
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designed to give good answers to short
search strings
Less can be more; always fear unreliable
info from your source
Google suggests alternative spellings, not
good on some
Don’t ask questions; do ask “answers”
Don’t specify type of document (e.g.,
report, discussion, paper)
Advanced searching
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restrict your search to a site; e.g.,
site:www.worldcourts.com
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search for synonyms; e.g., Rwanda
tribunal OR ictr
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eliminate terms; e.g., trafficking –drug
–narcotics
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restrict your search for a document
title: e.g., allintitle:resolution 1441
Foreign language
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British spellings (e.g., labour)
Google is inconsistent in treatment
of letters with diacritical marks as
different from letters without those
marks --try both for completeness
Be flexible; try alternate spellings
Google Book Search & Google Scholar
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Google Scholar -- searches full-text
of scholarly journals
Google Book Search –searches fulltext of books
access to complete text varies
sometimes better than library
catalogs or journal indexes