Transcript Searching the Internet

Preparing To Search
The Internet
Helping Students Search
Effectively
Mrs. Holewinski
Technology Coordinator
Buckeye Valley Local Schools
Surfing is not
searching.
An hour on the Web may
not answer a question that
you could find within two
minutes of picking up a
reference book.
Parts of a URL
http://www.starwars.com/movies.html
• http://--hypertext transfer protocol:
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the language computers use to “talk” to one another
• www—world wide web:
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the body of information connected by the cables and computers of the Internet
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.starwars—domain name:
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the structured, alphabetic-based, unique name for a computer on a network
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.com—top
level domain:
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gives an idea of where the document is stored
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/movies—file
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a folder within a website
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.html—hypertext
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the computer language used to format documents
name:
markup language:
Top Level Domains
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.edu—higher education
.k-12—elementary and secondary schools
.com—commercial
.gov—government agency
.mil—military
.org—general noncommercial organization
.net—computer network
Who Pays For The Internet?
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Advertisers pay for Internet websites.
Popups and banners are trying to influence your spending habits.
The information on commercial sites--.com—may be presented in such
a way as to encourage you to buy a particular product.
Be wary of URL’s with a ~ in the address—this indicates a personal
homepage and does not guarnantee accuracy.
Before you search, you need to:
• Prepare
• Organize
• Combine
Prepare
• What do you need to know about your topic?
• Make a list of all the terms connected with your topic.
• Include names, organizations, and phrases.
Organize
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Make a list of the words that are critical to your search.
Note terms that you don’t want to see appear.
Discard the rest.
Combine
Use these quick tips called Boolean operators
to combine your most important terms.
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Use AND to connect the terms you want to see.
Use NOT to exclude terms you don’t want.
Use OR to include similar terms.
Use quotation marks around names or phrases
Use lower case for all proper nouns, except for acronyms
For example…
Michael Jackson and music and
biography not lyrics
What Do You Use To Search?
• Search engines
Search Engines
• Are like your school Librarian or an index in
the back of a book
• Help you search for specific words and topics
Examples:
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Google.com
Yahoo.com
Bing
AskKids.com
Evaluating Websites
“Let the buyer beware”
Book publishers weed out inaccurate information.
No one checks the Internet for accuracy.
Before you start using the
information--
EVALUATE!
Who?
• Wrote the pages and are they an expert?
• Is a biography of the author included?
• How can you find out more about the author?
What?
• Does the author say is the purpose of the site?
• What else might the author have in mind for the site?
• What makes the site easy to use?
When?
• Was the site created?
• Was the site last updated?
Where?
• Does the information come from?
• Can I look to find out more about the sponsor of the
site?
Why?
• Is this information useful for my purpose?
• Is this page better than another?
• Should I use this information?
Citing a website
• Last name, first name of author.
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If there is no author listed, begin with the title.
• “Title of article within the website.”
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Put quote marks around the title
• Name of website.
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Underline the name
• Date article was written.
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Put the date first, then abbreviate the month.
• Date you accessed the article.
• URL.
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If the URL won’t fit on one line, break it at a slash. Include the entire URL, not just the one for the home
page.
Citing a website Online
• Easy Bib
– www.easybib.com/
• Son of Citation Machine
– http://citationmachine.net/
Example:
Adams, Joyce. “How the Internet changed students at
Buckeye Valley.” School News Service. 2 Sept. 2008.
13 Nov. 2008 <http://www.buckeyevalley.k12.net/> .
For example…
If you are looking for information about life on the planet Mars, you
don’t want sites popping up about the Roman god of war.
Put that in your list of words you don’t want to see.
What other words might be connected with your topic that will send you to
useless sites?