|
The Internet |
|
Library
Catalogue
Online resources
Newspapers
Reference Tools
APA
Referencing
EBSCOHost
Index New Zealand
The Internet
Plagiarism
Research Process
Writing Essays
Writing Reports
Ask
a Librarian
Interlibrary Loan
Distance
Services
Requesting Resources
Contact
Us
Feedback/Suggestions
General Info
Library Staff
Library Collections
Membership
Policies
|
|
|
|
The
Web - Some Terminology
In today's "e-world"
you are able to do virtually anything you like using the Web (the Internet).
You can download music files, view movies, do your shopping, pay your
bills, and hunt for information on any number of topics you can think
of.
It is important to learn how to the search the Internet properly, otherwise
you can waste a lot of time.
Here's some of the terminology which is generally used by people who regularly "surf the Net":
| Bookmarks/ Favorites |
Allows you to save or "bookmark" the URL of the page you are visiting. A bookmark acts like a short cut by letting you go directly to a webpage without having to search for or type in the URL. |
Boolean Searching
AND
OR
NOT |
Use of the terms AND, OR and NOT to expand and narrow down your search.
"I want only documents that contain both words."
"I want documents that contain either word. I don't care which word."
Throws out any documents that contain the word you don't want to find.
|
| Browser |
A program installed on your computer, which lets you retrieve and display web pages on the Internet.
EG Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Explorer are two of the most popular browsers around. |
| Chat Room |
Taking place in "real time", a chat room is a site you logon to so you can "chat" to other people who have similar interests as yourself. |
| Hits |
A list of search results or the number of records you retrieved. |
| Home Page |
The main page of a web site. Typically, the home page serves as an index or table of contents to that site, telling you what you can find there. |
| HTML |
H yper T ext M arkup L anguage - the computer language used to create documents on the Web. |
| HTTP |
H yper T ext T ransfer P rotocol - sets out how messages are formatted, transmitted, and what actions Web servers and browsers must take in response to various commands. |
| Internet |
A massive network that connects computers from all around the world and allows them to freely communicate with each other. |
| ISP |
I nternet S ervice P rovider - a company that provides you with access to the Internet EG Xtra, Paradise, Jetstream. |
| Link |
Also known as a hot link, they typically appear as highlighted or coloured text on a webpage. Links work by connecting you to other pages both within and outside of a website. |
| Metasearch Engine |
A search engine that lets you run your search through a number of search engines at the same time EG Ask Jeeves |
| Spider |
A computer program that crawls around the Web gathering information about documents to add to a search engine's database. |
| Search Engine |
A program that searches web pages for specified keywords and returns a list of results showing where the keywords were found. Common search engines include Google, Yahoo, and Ask Jeeves. |
| Surfing |
Another word for browsing the web. |
| URL |
The electronic address of where the webpage "lives" on the Internet. EG http://www.weltec.ac.nz |
Top = |
The Internet Explorer Toolbar There are two ways to find information on the net:
- 1) Type in the URL (web address) of the webpage you want to visit
- 2) Use a search engine to look for the information you're after (e.g. Google).
To know how to navigate your way around Internet Explorer, you need to understand the Toolbar and the Address bar.
The Toolbar
The toolbar appears at the top of your screen when you open the Internet. It lets you navigate or move your way around a web page.
The tool bar consists of buttons (ie the little pictures) that are shortcuts for menu commands. They make browsing faster and easier.
| Back |
Returns you to the last page you visited. |
| Forward |
Takes you back to the page you have just come from. |
| Stop |
Allows you to stop a page from downloading. This is particularly useful if you've requested the wrong page or if the page is taking a long time to download. |
| Refresh |
Sometimes the transfer of a page gets interrupted and doesn't get properly downloaded. Clicking on Refresh allows you to try and reload the page correctly. |
| Home |
Returns you to your selected home page NOT the home page of the site you are in. |
| Search |
Displays a list of popular search engines on the left hand side of the screen. |
| Favorites |
Allows you to save the URLs of your favourite web pages, so that you can quickly return to them without having to search for or type the URL in. |
| History |
Lists the websites you have visited recently. |
| Print |
Lets you print the current page(s) you are viewing. |
|
Address Bar
A URL is the electronic address of a webpage. The address bar is where you type in the URL in order to go to the particular webpage you want.
You must enter URL's exactly as written, so remember to include the colons (:), back slashes(/) & fullstops(.).
|
| Understanding
URLs
URL's are the electronic addresses of web pages. E.g. The URL for WelTec is www.weltec.ac.nz
URLs are put together in a set format:
| www |
Acronym for World Wide Web. Most URL's - but not all - start with the letters www
|
| .weltec |
The name of the organisation is pretty self explanatory, but sometimes if an organisation has a particularly long name, they may abbreviate it.
E.g. Victoria University of Wellington is known as VUW |
| .ac |
The next part of the URL is the type of organisation:
The following is a list of abbreviations normally used to describe organisations:
| |
ac |
academic |
edu |
educational |
| |
co |
company |
gov/govt |
government |
| |
com |
US commercial |
org |
organisation |
|
| .nz |
With the exception of the United States, all country names are abbreviated as well. Common ones you may come across include:
| |
au |
Australia |
in |
India |
| |
ca |
Canada |
jp |
Japan |
| |
de |
Germany |
nz |
New Zealand |
| |
fr |
France |
uk |
United Kingdom |
|
|
Top = |
|
|
What is a Search Engine?
A search engine is a computer program that works by sending out a "spider" to search for and retrieve as many web pages as possible which contain information relevant to your search terms..
Another program called an indexer, then scans through these web pages and returns a list of websites, highlighting where the keywords can be found on that page. The web pages in the list of results are called hits. |
Top = |
|
|
Relevance Ranking
Often you may get back millions of hits in your results list.
A search engine brings back the most relevant results first. It knows which web pages are more relevant than others by using something called "relevance ranking". This means that the search engine follows a set of rules when searching. The more times it finds all of your keywords in a page, and the closer to each other they are, the higher up the results list the webpage will come.
You can assume that if you have not found a relevant site in the first 3 - 4 pages of hits, you won't find what you are looking for and may need to change your search. |
Top = |
|
|
Which Search Engine Should I Use?
Google
Ranked the most popular search engine. Google is an excellent search engine which will only return a result if it finds all of the keywords you used in your query.
Yahoo
A directory which allows you to search by subject. Use when you need to find information on broad topics.
Windows Live.com
Internet Search Engine voted by librarians as more extensive than Google! |
www.google.co.nz
 http://www.yahoo.com/
http://www.live.com/
Top = |
Basic Searching All search engines work by searching for keywords. Keywords are words that precisely describe the topic you are trying to find information on.
To search for information on the web:
- Type in the URL of the search engine you wish to use in the address bar
- Type your keywords into the text box found on your screen
- Press enter
For example, to find information about "the effects of alcohol on foetal development", use the keywords 'alcohol foetal development'.
You don't need to put in all the "joining" words such as of, the and. The search engine will treat them as "stop words" and ignore them.
Top = |
|
|
Hints for Choosing Keywords
Below is a list of hints, that may help you choose the right keywords to search with.
EG For information about Michaelangelo, type his name, rather than "painter".
- Use words that are likely to appear in the information you want.
EG Accommodation will get better results than "nice places stay".
- Be careful using keywords which have more than one meaning.
EG If you use "rugby" as your keyword, you will get resources about both rugby union and rugby league.
To overcome this problem, use boolean searching to help you narrow down you search.
EG rugby AND union
Alternatively you might try rugby NOT league
- Make keywords as specific as possible.
EG Art Deco Architecture will get more relevant results than "old houses and buildings from the 1930's".
EG Counseling or Counselling. Try searching using both.
- Think about alternative words, which may have the same meaning as your initial keyword.
EG Teacher, tutor, lecturer
- Use phrasing when you need to search for a specific phrase or combination of words.
Do this be enclosing your keywords in quotation marks. Note: put words in the order you want them found, with exact spelling.
EG "existential psychotherapy"
|
|
|
|
Search Hints for Using the Web
Boolean Operators
When searching the Web, you can often get good result from a search engine just be entering your chosen keywords and relying on the search engine to determine which web pages best match your query.
Sometimes, there may be situations when you want to specify that certain terms must be included in your search results, or certain terms should be excluded.
When using a search engine to find useful information on a topic, it is often helpful to combine your search terms with Boolean operators to get a more relevant result.
The Boolean operators AND, OR and NOT can be used to expand or narrow down your search.
AND |
"I only want documents that contain both words."
EG education AND technology |
OR |
"I want documents that contain either word."
EG cinema OR movies |
NOT |
Effectively throws out any document that contains the specified word.
EG rugby NOT league |
Stay Broad
In the beginning, try and keep your search terms as broad possible and then narrow down. This gives you a much better result, as you will often find alternative terms to search for by looking at the search results.
Most Relevant First
Remember, all search results are presented in order of relevance, with the most relevant websites coming first. So you don't have to wade through pages of results, just try the first three or four, and if you haven't found what you were looking for, you may need to change your search.
Punctuation
When entering keywords, don't worry about punctuation or capitals as the search engine should ignore them.
Adding to "Favorites"
If you find a website you may want to visit again, make sure to mark it as a "favorite". To do this:
- Click on the "Favorites" drop down menu found on your toolbar,
Select "Add to Favorites".
This will then "save" the URL for you. Now, instead of having to research for or retype in the URL, you will be able to access it directly, by once again selecting "Favorites" from the toolbar, and selecting the now saved URL.
Still Can't Find What You Want?
When searching the net, if you find you aren't getting the results you wanted, ask yourself:
- Have you spelt your keywords correctly?
- Do you need to change your keywords and try alternative terms?
- Do you need to use a different search engine? Remember, search engines don't search the "entire web", it's just too big. It's generally a good idea to know how to use two or three different search engines, as they will each search a different part of the web. So if you find you aren't getting the results you want, try your search using a different search engine.
|
Top = |
|
|
Evaluating Websites
Before using any website in your assignment, you need to evaluate how good it is.
With books and magazines, it is safe to assume that they have been through an evaluation process before being published. The Internet, however, is largely uncensored, meaning that anyone can put anything up there.
To decide if a resource is "credible" you can evaluate it against the following criteria:
Authority
- Who is the author? Are they qualified to write about the topic?
This doesn't mean that the person needs to have a whole list of qualifications after their name (although it does help for some subjects), but whether or not they possess the knowledge to write about their topic.
For example, I would expect that someone who has worked as a personal trainer for 15 years should be qualified to write about exercise programmes.
Accuracy
- Are there any obvious mistakes? These might be factual or spelling mistakes.
- Is the language used appropriate? For example, if an article you're reading is meant to be an "academic" piece, but is filled with slang, can you really trust it?
- Is the research correctly cited? Ie can you actually see or find out where they got their information from? Whose work do they use to back up what they are saying?
Objectivity
- Are the aims of the research clearly stated, with both points of view fairly represented and discussed with a minimum of bias?
For example, an objective article about hormone replacement therapy for menopausal women would need to include both the benefits and dangers linked with taking the recommended drugs.
Coverage
- Is there enough in-depth information, or are topics briefly skimmed over? Does it matter?
Currency
- Is the information current and up to date?
For example: anything written about the latest developments in computing technology would have to be fairly current (no more than a year old), but if you were researching the history of computers, something older would be fine.
|
Top = |
Further Resources
- Cooper, B. (2000). Searching the internet . London: Dorling Kindersley.
- Earle, V. (1999). Searching the web: A smart guide to on-line skills. Lower Hutt, N.Z.: Open Polytechnic of New Zealand.
- Milner, A. (2000). Browsing the web. London: Dorling Kindersley.
- University of California, Berkley. (2002). Internet Guides. Retrieved 01 June, 2004, from: http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/
- Want, R.S. (Ed.). (2000). How to search the web: A quick reference guide to finding things on the world wide web. New York: WANT Publishing Co.
Top = |
|
