WHAT YOU CAN COUNT ON FINDING ON THE NET

• Web sites.
• A delivery system for conventional learning tools: books, both physical (your online catalogs and WorldCat) and digital (see the Online Books Page below), full-text journal articles in electronic databases, reserve readings scanned in in pdf format, maps, reference books, textbook support pages, and documents.
• A means of communication: you can use e-mail, chat, usenet, or IRC for online discussion, and maintain your own research interests through memberships in listserves and discussion groups.
• A prime source for the following kinds of material:

  A. Pictures.
  B. FAQ files --frequently asked questions files created by experts in the field
  C. Primary sources. See http://library.sau.edu/bestinfo/Majors/History/hisdoc.htm for a guide to some important collections of historical documents, maps, laws, court cases, statistics, public records
  D. Government information.
  E. Searchable files and databases -- you can do key word searching for poetry, plays, laws, court cases, news files, and more.
  F. Interactive files -- virtual patients, "ask an expert" sites, interactive travel mapping, etc.
  G. Sound files: music, broadcasts, interviews, speeches, sound effects...
  H. Reference sources. The Reference Desk on Librarians' Index to the Internet (http://lii.org/), or X-Refer (http://w1.xrefer.com/) can answer many reference questions
  I. Online courses. Faculty and students can see how someone else is teaching the same concept. See World Lecture Hall below.
  J. News. One excellent directory to all kinds of news coverage is http://fullcoverage.yahoo.com/ for a directory.
  K. the extremely obscure. The net is where people share their private passions

  
  
  For a more extended discussion, see When and How To Search the Net
  http://marylaine.com/howto.html
  
  
  
  

  WHAT YOU CAN'T COUNT ON FINDING ON THE NET

  My mental map of total amount of available information, by form

  
  
  
  

  DIRECTORIES TO QUALITY RESOURCES:

• Librarians' Index to the Internet http://lii.org/
• Some Excellent Selective Subject Directories
  http://library.sau.edu/bestinfo/Majors/majindex.htm
• Scout Report Archive
  http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/archives/ -- search through reviews of 12,000 high-quality educational sites
• World Lecture Hall
  http://www.utexas.edu/world/lecture/index.html
  And for an all-purpose directory, for fun as well as research, try the human expert guides at http://about.com/
  
  
  

  GREAT TEACHING ON THE NET

• Gallery of Interactive Geometry http://www.geom.umn.edu/apps/gallery.html
• Global Schoolhouse http://www.gsn.org/ -- a guide to collaborative educational projects on the web
• Medieval SourceBook http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook.html -- or any other of this history professor's sourcebooks.
• OLogy http://www.ology.amnh.org/sitemap/index.html
  From the American Museum of Natural History
• TERC http://www.terc.edu/index.cfm
• ThinkQuest http://thinkquest.org/
  Student-initiated, student-designed web pages to teach others what they learned on a class project of their choosing.
• the WebQuest Page at San Diego State University http://edweb.sdsu.edu/webquest/webquest.html
  
  
  

  SEARCH TIPS

• Searching is a multi-stage process. Sometimes you want to start with a specialized directory and search inside that. As you pick up information in the course of your search, use it to alter or refine your search.

• GO WHERE IT IS -- if you need sites for children, use a good children's directory or search engine; if you know federal and state governments would have the info you want, use searchgov.com, etc.

• Play with words. Move up and down the continuum from general to specific. Remember, AN answer is not the only possible answer.

• Read the help screens.

• Most search engines accept quotes around multiple words as a sign to search them AS A PHRASE -- "The Name of the Rose"

• Most search engines allow you to use the boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT (AltaVista also allows NEAR). Most search engines recognize them as operators if you put them in caps. Most search engines will also accept + for AND, and - for NOT. Voltaire + revolution - American

• HOWEVER, if you use boolean operators, you will overrule all the efforts the search engine is making at natural language processing, so as a general rule try natural language queries first, and boolean only when you have a complex question or the natural language query doesn't work

• USE WEDGE WORDS:
  

  "financial ratios" + FAQ
  laser printers + features + comparison
  "Word 6.0" + tutorial
  Hispanics + demographics
  "rock music" + encyclopedia
  "used cars" + "book value"
  catholicism + expert or priest + aska science + announcements
  maps + "lesson plans"
  cataloging + listserv
  audio + "search engine"
  patents + database

  
  
  

  GUIDES TO USING SEARCH ENGINES WELL

• About.com Search Guide
  http://websearch.about.com/internet/websearch/
• Choosing the Best Search Engine for Your Information Needs
  http://NuevaSchool.org/~debbie/library/research/adviceengine.html
• Search Engine Watch http://searchenginewatch.com/
• Searching the Invisible Web http://websearch.about.com/internet/websearch/library/searchwiz/bl_invisibleweb_apra.htm -- outline of a presentation by Chris Sherman and Gary Price.
  
  
  

  GENERAL SEARCH ENGINES

• Ask Jeeves http://www.askjeeves.com/
• Excite Precision Search http://www.excite.com/search/ -- Use "zoom in" to narrow a broad topic into smaller subject folders, restrict search to the smaller universes it offers, click on related articles.
• Google http://google.com/ -- note both links to the clickable subject headings the topic is filed under and the "similar pages" feature.
• MSN Search http://search.msn.com/ -- a broad search topic will yield a list of narrower "Popular Search Topics;" "Ten Most Popular Sites" (Direct Hit)
• Northern Light http://northernlight.com/ -- sorts results into narrower subject folders and, by searching a collection of magazine articles as well, reminds students that the web isn't all there is on this topic.
  
  
  

  SPECIALIZED SEARCH ENGINES

• Ask Jeeves for Kids http://www.ajkids.com/ -- a kid-friendly database of answers
• Ditto.com http://Ditto.com/ -- a very good picture search engine
• Kids Click http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/KidsClick!/ -- searchable directory of good sites for kids
• SciSeek Science Search Engine http://www.sciseek.com/
• SearchEdu.com http://www.searchedu.com/ -- restricts itself to searching university web sites, along with links to related topics in the Open Directory
• SearchIQ http://www.zdnet.com/searchiq/ -- an annotated guide to good topical portals and search engines
• X-Refer http://w1.xrefer.com/ -- searches through online dictionaries, encyclopedias and quote books
  
  
  

  ONLINE DATABASES

  Start with the licensed databases of journal articles available for students and faculty and staff through your school library's web site and your public library's web site

  Among the free databases available to anyone on the web are:

• Documents in the News http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/docnews.html
• ERIC http://askeric.org/Eric/ -- Search for articles in education journals and education reports
• ERIC/AE Full Text Internet Library http://ericae.net/ftlib.htm -- a smaller database of education articles available online full-text
• Fact Monster http://www.factmonster.com/ -- FAQ files on a wide variety of subjects; links to dictionary and encyclopedia entries
• Find Articles.com http://www.findarticles.com/PI/index.jhtml -- Indexes full-text articles available on the web.
• Medline Plus http://medlineplus.gov/ -- full text authoritative medical information for laypersons
• On-Line Books Page http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/ -- searchable index to over 14,000 digitized books, old and new
• Polling Report http://www.pollingreport.com/ -- gathers poll results on a wide variety of topics in one place
• Statistical Resources on the Web http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/stats.html
• WhyFiles: the Science Behind the News http://whyfiles.org/
• X-Refer http://w1.xrefer.com/ -- searches through online dictionaries, encyclopedias and quote books
  
  
  

  FINDING OUT ABOUT NEW STUFF

• Classroom Connect's Net Happenings Page http://listserv.classroom.com/archives/net-happenings.html -- daily updates on k-12 sites
• Kathy Schrock's New Sites http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/newlist.html
• Librarian's Index to the Internet (click on New This Week)
  http://lii.org/
• Neat New Stuff I Found This Week http://marylaine.com/neatnew.html
• Scout Report http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/report/sr/current/index.html
  
  
  

  EVALUATING SITES

  Here are some questions to ask:

  • Sez who? Are the author's credentials or professional affiliation given? If the sponsoring agencies are universities, libraries, museums, hospitals, state and federal governments, or professional associations, they automatically have high credibility.
  • Who's it written for? Kids? Laypersons? Scholars? College students? What is the intellectual level of its language and content?
  • Quality. Is opinion supported by evidence? Does it tell you the source of the evidence? If polling data, does it tell you what the questions are, who the sample was, and how they were asked? If it's a piece of research, is the research method documented and duplicatable? Does it give you footnotes and bibliographies so that you can independently check quotes and facts?
  • Currency. How recent is the information itself? How often is the site updated?
  • Bias. Does the site attempt to be neutral? Is it sponsored by an advocacy organization?
  • Responsiveness Is there a contact person you can e-mail with questions, suggestions, corrections?
  • Has the site won awards? Not a necessary credential, but when you see a Lycos Top 5% of the Net, or a Magellan 5 Star award and such, that is a strong recommendation.

    A good guide for kids on evaluating sources is available from the Multnomah County Library Homework Center: http://www.multnomah.lib.or.us/lib/homework/webeval.html

  
  
  
  

  CITING SOURCES AND AVOIDING PLAGIARISM

• Nueva Library Research
  http://NuevaSchool.org/~debbie/library/research/research.html -- Includes Interactive Forms for Citing Books, Articles, etc., as well as suggestions to improve research methods
• Internet Essay Exposer
  http://members.home.net/mclare99/essay/
• Online Writing Lab Handouts -- citing sources http://www.ipl.org/teen/aplus/linkciting.htm -- includes links to all standard style guides and advice on when to cite and what constitutes plagiarism