Lecture Summary:
In the lecture we discussed search tool types, examples of some common search engines. Furthermore, problems that are associated with these was disccused.
Search tools can be categorised into two:
- Search engines and
- Directories
Firstly, before discussing any further on search tools, it is important to know what search engine is. A search engine is a web-based application(program) that crawls the internet, creating indices of websites. These sites are usually indexed according to keywords.
Some common types of search engines include of :
Google - http://www.google.com/
www.ImageShack.us" />Yahoo - http://www.yahoo.com/
www.ImageShack.us" />AltaVista - http://www.altavista.com/
www.ImageShack.us" />AlltheWeb - http://www.alltheweb.com/
www.ImageShack.us" />Other common search engines include of:
www.ImageShack.us" />With search engines, there can be quite a lot of problems associated with searches made. Some of these problems include of :
- Too many results may be returned
Below is a screen shot of such an example where the word "cricket" was searched in google. Note the results returned.
www.ImageShack.usSome of the types of Queries include of :
- Keywords
- Phrases
- Boolean
- Advanced/engine features
An example is shown in the screen shot below.
www.ImageShack.us" />Some search tips that can help with better returns of results are:
- Use several search tools
- Read search tips or help information at each search engine
- For keyword searches, use several words
- Guess a location
- "Select the wheat from the chaff" by thinking what you want and
- Back up to find where you are
This was the lecture for week nine.
Workshop Activities:
In our week 9 workshop, we did activities on using the search engines to find answers to questions. Our major activity that helped us learn how to use search engines, was answering a quiz in which we had to search for the answers using search engines such as google.
Below is a screen shot of the the quiz from the following website.
http://www.siteseen.co.uk/questions/generalknowledgehard/
www.ImageShack.us" />The aim of the activity was to be able to use search engines successfully and find answers to these questions from the quiz. Below is an example of how a question from the quiz could be answered using search engines.
For example the first question in the quiz asks 'What civilisation is associated with the once great city of Machu Picchu the spectacular ruins of which were rediscovered in 1911 ?"
Now, in order to get the answer to that question, a search engine must be used if person doing the quiz has no knowledge on that field - history.
The first step to finding the answer to the question is choosing a search engine. For demonstration purposes, if google is used, then below are the steps to finding the correct answers.
step 1 - choose a search enginge (in this case, google)
www.ImageShack.us" />The next step is to identify the key words from the question and use them on google to find information on that topic. From the question, we could try and use "Machu Picchu" as a term to search in google.
Below is a screen shot showing the above process.
www.ImageShack.us" />The next step is to look for the results that are most helpful and contain the words "Machu Picchu" in them next to each other.
In the screenshot below, the results are displayed, from which the search results returned information on "Machu Picchu".
www.ImageShack.us" />Click on any result and the then try finding the information and answers that you require through reading those results. Below is a screen shot that shows how the correct answer was found to be "INCAS" from wikipedia.
www.ImageShack.us" />This was our workshop activity for week 9 - using search engines to find information correctly.
Answers to the Quiz:
1. Incas
2. Violet
3. Birchard
4. Tennyson
5. Shells
6. maps
7. Puccini
8. volcano
9. Basenji
10. Bosch
11. Waterloo
12. ants
13. leo
14. siam
15. mushrooms
16. Orangutan
17. Pluto
18. Benito
19. lizard
20. Napoleon
Readings:
The readings in week 9, discuss the variety of search engines and search tips on the internet along with strategies to finding good information.
Below is the URL of the first reading which discusses the Internet search tips and strategies.
http://www.virtualsalt.com/howlook.htm
www.ImageShack.us" />
This reading outlines the two key questions that researchers using the internet to find information, have on their minds. These two questions are :
- How can I find what I want? and
- How can I know that what I find, is any good to me?
The article on this website focuses more on answering the first question by disccusing the ways to find what you want. According to the article, you can find just about anything you want through the use of little creativity, some patience and a few search engines.
Creativity in this context, refers to the ability of being able to generate some synonyms for the topic you are finding information on. In addition to that, patience in this context refers to understanding that because of the variety of information spread out on the internet, you need to allocate time to read and understand and evaluate the information you read. Variety of search engines in this context refers to being able to use various tools to find your information, and not just one tool.
Categories of Information:
The article also suggests that before finding the correct information you are looking for, it is important to understand the different types of categories of information on the Web. These categories are:-
- The Free, Visible Web. - Includes all the publicly mounted Web pages which are indexed by search engines. It is suggested that a really good search engine be used to find information from this category or perhaps a directory.
- The Free, Invisible Web. - Webpages that cannot be accessed throuhg search engines, unless directly visiting them. Appropriate database knowledge is required to access such information in this category.
- Paid Databases over the Web. - Includes of commercial databases that libraries subscribe to, containing scholarly journals, newspapers and court cases etc. Access through these webpages must be enabled with a password or some sort of security coding system.
The second reading comes from the website - http://searchenginewatch.com/resources/article.php/2156611
www.ImageShack.us" />The above website was looking more complicated to navigate around. There were too many links and therefore I did not spend much time on the website. However, if there were less links then the website could have been more user friendly and therefore of greater help.
The final reading came from the website below: - http://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/history/ivh/chap4.htm
www.ImageShack.us" />The above website showed a detailed look at the history of the search engines. I found it interesting to learn about how it all began and about the first search engine. From the above website, a lot can be learnt on databases, library catalogues and directories that can be useful when doing research.
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