Transcript Day 2:Tips on Searching Wisely

DAY 2:
TIPS ON SEARCHING WISELY
Zach Williams
[email protected]
August 21, 2014
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FINDING INFORMATION
• As you continue in your courses and eventual
careers, you frequently will have to locate
information.
• With the resources available through the
Internet, it is easier than ever before to find
large amounts of information.
– This is a double-edged sword: it’s also easy to
get buried under too much data.
– It’s important to understand that just because the
data is available doesn’t mean it is correct.
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SEARCH ENGINES:
PLANNING YOUR SEARCHES
• To help find data quickly, plan your searches.
• Be specific and use multiple keywords.
– If you are searching for German shepherds in
West Virginia, you will get better results using the
terms German shepherd and West Virginia than
if you just searched using the term dogs.
– Try searching for different terms and synonyms. If
car doesn’t work, try searching for automobile.
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SEARCH ENGINES:
FINE-TUNING YOUR TERMS
• Use phrases and quotation marks
– “Springfield, Illinois” will return pages that reference
only Springfield, Illinois with the words in that specific
order.
• Negative terms
– Virus –computer will find pages that mention the
word virus but not the word computer.
• AND and OR queries
– Most search engines automatically insert the word
AND between phrases (which is why quotation marks
are useful) so there is no need to type it in the search
engine. OR is useful for searching for more than one
term, such as West Virginia University OR WVU.
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SEARCH ENGINES:
STAYING ON-TARGET
• Google ignores common terms such as where
and how, as well as single digits and letters.
• Searches aren’t case sensitive. Typing aNoThEr
pHrAse will give same results as another phrase.
• To require certain words be in your results,
surround them with quotation marks. For example,
“dogs” “West Virginia” will require both “dogs”
and “West Virginia” be in results that are shown.
• Use the site command to restrict searches
– football site:wvu.edu will return pages that reference
football, but only on WVU servers.
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SEARCH ENGINES:
GETTING ADDITIONAL HELP
• Try using Google’s help features.
– The search engine’s help page can be found
at http://google.com/help/basics.html and from
there, more advanced search tips are
available.
• Most other search engines work similarly
to Google.
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WIKIPEDIA
• Wikipedia is a free user-edited online
encyclopedia at http://en.wikipedia.org
• Advantages
– Huge volume of information, often on subjects
not well-covered elsewhere
• Disadvantages
– Can be edited by anyone
– Information can be misleading, biased, or just
plain wrong.
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WIKIPEDIA:
EVALUATING ARTICLES
• What’s the tone of the article?
– Any tone other than a professional one increases the
likelihood that the article is misleading or biased.
• When was it last edited?
– More recently edited articles are generally more
frequently used and more likely to be correct.
• Citations and references
– More citations and references means the article is
more likely to be accurate.
• Like any source, there is no guarantee the
information is 100% accurate.
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WIKIPEDIA:
HOW SHOULD I USE IT?
• You generally shouldn’t use Wikipedia as a
sole source for your writing!
• Initial and general information
– Wikipedia is great for giving you general
background on a subject.
• References (at the bottom of the article)
– Sources for getting more information.
– Also help to verify the information in the
Wikipedia article.
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GOOGLE SCHOLAR
• Where do I find Google Scholar?
– http://scholar.google.com
• What sources is it looking at?
– Includes peer-reviewed papers, theses, books,
abstracts, and other scholarly literature.
• If you’re doing technical research or writing
papers for your major, Google Scholar is a
good place to look for existing work.
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GOOGLE SCHOLAR:
HOW SHOULD I USE IT?
• What do I use it for?
– Good for finding papers, abstracts, and citations
– A great way to search for diverse sources from one place
– Provides full-text sources on the web, as well as locates
the complete paper in your library
• What advantages does it offer?
– For each piece that it locates, Google scholar shows the
title, other papers that have cited the article, related
articles, and library links for electronic and physical papers
– Allows you to search by title, author, and category, as well
as within specific publications
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LIBRARY DATABASES
• Visit the WVU Libraries website at
http://www.libraries.wvu.edu/
– Retrieve peer-reviewed articles in full text
– Use the information you find here to look for other
sources and articles
• Use the full-text databases, such as
LexisNexis
– These are good for contemporary, straightforward
information
• Other databases are available at
http://www.libraries.wvu.edu/databases/
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SOME THINGS TO CONSIDER
• When researching topics on the web, some things to
think about are:
– Who is the page’s author? Is the source credible? News
sites like www.cnn.com will have more accurate
information than someone’s blog.
– How current is the information? Pages that haven’t been
updated since 1998 are less likely to have accurate
information.
– Search engines are unfiltered and thus return all results.
These may include results that aren’t objective or even
accurate. Think about the possible biases that could be
portrayed and whether the information and data is
authentic.
– You can double-check your information against multiple
sources if you are unsure of their authenticity.
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