INTERNET RESEARCH It’s More Than Just Wikipedia!
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN• How to use the research process• Effective search strategies• How to evaluate a website• What plagiarism is and how it can
be avoided• Helpful resources you can use
WHAT YOU ALREADY KNOWWhen you are told to research or
look up information, where do you go?
GoogleBingWikipedia
BUT DID YOU KNOW… Google and other search engines
are in business to make money, and that means bumping the ad-driven sites to the top of the page.
Wikipedia can be a starting point for research, but even its creators make no guarantee of its validity. Anyone can contribute to Wikipedia!
When 300 middle school students were asked how they begin research, most of them
answered that they simply type the question into Google.
Not one out of 600 high school students surveyed could
answer when asked how Google returns search results. Many
said it was magic.
WHAT YOU DIDN’T KNOW
Data provided by Erial
THE RESEARCH PROCESS
Define the Task
Locate Info
Select Sourc
esOrganize Notes
Present Ideas
AssessYour Work
LOCATING INFORMATION The first two results are advertisements for
companies trying to make money. NO INFORMATION!
Google returned 483,
000,000 results. Really?! Google returns the
NEWEST information first. Fresher isn’t always
better when you’re doing research.
LOCATING INFORMATION: SEARCH STRATEGY • Start general • Try multiple combinations of
words• Use more precise language• Look beyond the first five results!
Now we’re going to get logical…
LOCATING INFORMATION: SEARCH STRATEGY
When searching computer databases,
the results are controlled by use of Boolean operators:
OR, AND, and NOT Think about ice cream. Imagine all the
possibilities a soft ice-cream machine could
make if it offered chocolate, strawberry, and
vanilla, and could mix together any and all
combinations of those flavors.
If you don't wish to try every possible flavor combination the soft ice cream
machine offers, you must narrow your selection.
In database searching AND
narrows your search and links together different concepts.
Think of AND
as “only if also”
strawberry AND vanilla AND chocolate.
Images provided by Ithaca College Library
In database searching OR
expands a search by broadening the results. It is often used to combine
like words or ideas.
Think of OR
as “either or”
Strawberry OR vanilla OR chocolate
In database searching, NOT is used to get rid of an unwanted concept.
(Strawberry OR vanilla) NOT
chocolate
LET’S PRACTICE! Using Boolean Operators
Which of the following searches would return the most results? • Football AND high school • Football AND high school AND Ohio
Which of the following searches would return the fewest results? • children • children OR toddlers
How would you compose your search if you wanted to find vampire books but
you HATE the Twilight series? • Vampires AND Twilight• Vampires OR Twilight
• (Vampires) NOT Twilight
LOCATING INFORMATION—DATABASESEBSCO Student Research Center
6-8EBSCO All Database Search Academic Search Premier Sweet Search ERIC http://www.sweetsearch.com/# http://www.svlocal.org/staff/cgi-bin/homepage.pl?id=hslibrary
EVALUATING WEBSITES …But everything on the Internet is
true, right?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bufTna0WArc
THINK LIKE A DETECTIVEWhen using the Internet to find information,
you should use the following criteria to determine whether it’s a source you want to
use.
Purpose Objectivity Currency Responsibility Clarity
TIPS FOR EVALUATING WEBSITES Be skeptical!
If the page has no author, editor, or publisher, it is probably NOT reliable
Look at domain names (.org, .com, .edu)
Information is only as good as its source
Always verify information with another source
PLAGIARISM The Dangers of Copy and Paste
Image obtained from Turnitin.com
WHAT? Plagiarism is: • To steal and pass off the ideas or
words of another as one's own• To use another's work without
crediting the source• To present an idea or product as new
that has been gathered from another source
In other words, plagiarism is an act of fraud.
It involves both stealing someone else's work and lying about it afterward.
WHY?
• It’s WRONG.
• It’s becoming easier and easier for teachers and principals to detect plagiarism.
• In the time it takes you to plagiarize, you could probably finish the actual assignment.
• Whenever you cut and paste from a website, you cut and paste all the garbage from that website as well.
• You think that a Wikipedia article sounds like you? Dream on.
Why Shouldn’t You Plagiarize?
WHAT TO CITE Always cite other
people’s words and ideasAnything you read in a book, article, web page, etc.
Anything that is presented or spoken like speeches,
PowerPoint's, etc.
You don’t need to cite what is considered
common knowledge
Example: Barack Obama is our
president. Example: President Taylor died in office.
BUT, you should cite something that is controversial or
contradicts common knowledge
Example: Barack Obama will not be elected for a
second term.
President Taylor died in office after drinking a cup
of tea that had been poisoned.
http://unitproj.library.ucla.edu
HELPFUL RESOURCES Plagiarism and Research Guide http
://unitproj.library.ucla.edu/col/bruinsuccess/
Helpful Research and Citation Guide http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/2/Bibliography Maker http://www.easybib.com/Helpful Citation Machine http://citationmachine.net/index2.php
SOME FINAL TIPS AND TRICKS
Understand • Be aware of
what type of source you’re viewing
• Article?• Blog?
Record • Take good
notes• Email
documents to yourself
• Keep note cards on hand
Organize• Keep all
documents until you’re done!
• Keep things in one place
• Write down important info