Transcript Online research (1)x - merrylandsseniorrevision

Ms Perry
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Bing Search: Microsoft's search engine
Google: The world's most popular search
engine.
Yahoo!: The 2nd largest search engine on the
web
IDENTIFY
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Find the instruction
words
DEFINITION
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Task words – these tell
you what you need to
do e.g. affect, young
children
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Find words that limit
the topic
Identify the key
concepts
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What are the limits or
aspects you need to
concentrate on:
What is the focus of
the assignment? What
do you need to
research?
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Work out the search words. Select the key words that
you need to search by using a dictionary or thesaurus.
Enter these words into a data base or search engine.
For example: Topic: How does television violence
affect children?
Keywords
television
violence
children
Synonyms
TV
aggression, crime
young people, teenagers, adolescents
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Use the keywords that you have identified. Work
out your search words to search for resources that
are relevant for our sample essay topic, for
example;
television AND violence AND children
Enter your search terms (keywords) in the search
box. You can use AND, OR & NOT always in
upper case. These are called Boolean operators.
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Type in the word or phrase you'd like to search
e.g. medieval history
Browse your options
Click on an option that suits you
If you don't see anything that fits your needs,
refine your search
If a set of words belongs together in a phrase, you
should put quotes around those words or dashes
in between them. This is great for when you know
a few lyrics to a song and want to search them to
find the song's name.
Run your search through other parts of Google. You can make your search more
specific depending on whether you want to search Google's images, news, or maps.
You can just click on the option on the top left hand side of the Google search bar.
Web
search
Images
Maps
News
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Retrieving too many results can be a common problem when searching databases. To
narrow your search use AND to combine terms. This tells the database to look for only
articles that contain all the search words you enter.
Example: Television AND Violence AND Society
Sometimes you may not get enough results. This could be because the keywords you are
using are not the words the author has used in the article. To broaden your search, think
of synonyms for your keywords and use OR to combine them.
Example: Television OR TV OR Media
Some words have different endings e.g. child, childhood, children. You can add an
asterisk * to the end of the word if the ending of the word is varied.
Example: child*
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When you are satisfied with your search results, scroll through the list of
records to select the most appropriate 2-3 websites. Check the title.
Look for the URL (Uniform (or universal) resource locator)
The URL path is where the file is located. http//:www.(Hypertext
Transfer (or Transport) Protocol)
This is also called the domain name:
.net is the network provider providing services to subscribers
.gov is government agencies
.org is non profit organisations
.com are commercial enterprise trying to sell or endorse products.
It is very important that you read a few websites and see if this enable
you to select the 2-3 most recent and relevant websites .
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When you have found some articles ask yourself the following questions
to help you determine whether they will be useful for your assignment.
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Relevance: Is this article relevant to your topic?
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Does the information verify or back up what you need to know?
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Credibility of author: Are the author's credentials listed. E.g. degrees;
institution?
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Currency: Is the article current? Is that important? Why?
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References: Are there references/bibliography?
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Type of resource: What sort of information is covered: research, news,
literature review; discussion of latest trends; information about a specific
topic. Is this sort of information appropriate for the assignment?
MOST IMAGES AND TEXT ARE COPYRIGHTED.
You can put information into your own words. You
can then reference the information you write down
as an acknowledgement of whose ideas and
thoughts you are expressing
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Why do we reference?
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To refer to different sources for information.
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To acknowledge the author/creator.
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To avoid plagarising.
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To let other people see where you accessed your
information.
To make your work
credible…believable…trustworthy…reliable.
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Referencing is also called CITING.
Reference details can be written at the end of
an assignment or essay.
The reference should include:
Author
Year
Title
Place of publication
Publisher
Where it was retrieved from if it is a website
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BOOKS:
Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (2000). Title of
book: Subtitle. Location: Publisher.
WEBSITES:
Author, A. A. (2000). Title of work. Retrieved
from http://www.xxx.xxx
HSC online
 http://hsc.csu.edu.au/
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We can go through the subject of your choice.