How To Search The Internet Searching the Internet

How To… Search The Internet

Searching the Internet The internet requires searching skills that are different from those used with printed materials.

Starting to Search A good place to start, according to Pappas and Tepe, is with a presearch activity. Brainstorming to identify the various concepts that might be included within the initial topic. This leads to identifying appropriate search terms prior to using the information resources.

Actual Search During the actual search, students may use browse, hierarchical, and or analytical search functions. Browse is a basic function and is available in most electronic resources. The searcher enters a search word or phrase and the computer locates materials containing that word or phase.

The Hierarchal search The Hierarchical search function is a more complex process and requires higher-level thinking to develop a search strategy. The process starts with a broad concept and the narrows the topic to a specific piece or pieces of information. The searcher makes a series of decisions, selecting subsets of the concepts likely to contain information related to the search topic. The concept becomes more narrowly focused with each subset.

Analytical Search An Analytical search enables students to make connections and relate concepts with the Boollean operators “and, ” “or, ” and “not. ” This search function is very powerful and provides access to information that would be difficult to acquire with printed resources.

Interpreting the Information Students also need to be taught the skills to interpret the information they receive through an electronic search. Summarizing and Paraphrasing, for example, are imported interpretation skills. With both word processing and information resources in digital format, plagiarism is easier than ever.

Interpreting the Information cont. Teachers can discourage students from lifting major sections of papers from electronic articles by working with them and seeing student work in progress rather than just accepting the final product. The teacher should see the topic and approve it, then see the outline and various drafts. The focus becomes the process, not the product.

Search Engines The Following are a few search engines that will help you start and be successful searching the web. Yahoo Google Alta. Vista Ask Jeeves Alltheweb Look. Smart

Happy Searching