Here are ways of using Internet search engines to aid the
information gathering process during research.
LINKS TO INFORMATION: Google is one of the
most-commonly used search engines.
"TO AVOID sifting through irrelevant information, a user needs to be
sure of the kind of information he/she wants. He/She will also, in the
process, have to learn how to rate information based on its relevance."
It would be relevant to give brief indications about searching the
Internet. When you have to retrieve a lot of information in the shortest
possible time without missing any vital element, you should make use of
strategies for effective search.
Most of us usually go to search engines such as the Google or Yahoo! and
type a few keywords and open the sites that are displayed on the
screen. This is not the most effective way for this exercise. Let us
look into this in some detail.
Search engines
There are several search engines with their own special attributes. Each
one may have its own focus. Some of the search devices other than the
Google and the Yahoo! are alltheweb.com, ask.com, altavista.com,
answers.com, books.google.com (very useful for finding books),
factbites.com, infonetware.com, lycos.com, scholar.google.com (very
useful for finding research papers), search.aol.com, searchedu.com, and
wisenut.com. You may see their features by visiting them.
Remember that searching for a particular piece of information is like
looking for a specific tree in a dense forest. If you take a wrong turn,
you may never reach your target.
Carefully select the search terms, so as to narrow down the search in
your desired area. Defining the topic as succinctly as possible also
narrows down the search.
Keywords
You may list up to six or even eight keywords. The right combination of
words is important. "Scientific temper'' for example gives something
that cannot easily be brought in through "scientific'' or "temper"
separately.
Use quotes ("... .") for restricting the search to sites containing what
appears inside the quotes. Never hesitate to use the advanced search
mode. If you can add a unique term, do so.
Most search engines are not sensitive to case; but sometimes
capitalisation may help you. Try different search engines, if you find
that one engine does not give useful results.
Use Boolean commands like AND and OR. If you type "elephant and ant and
fly," only those documents that contain all the three words will be
shown. If you type "elephant or ant or fly", documents that contain at
least one of these will be shown on the screen. Articles (a, an, the),
pronouns, or prepositions need not be included in key words.
Another style
There is another style of searching the Google. Go to directory.google.com.
You will find several headings such as Arts, Computers, Science, and
Sports. On this page, if you click on science, you will find a long list
showing different branches of science and related topics. Physics for
example contains more than 5,000 sub-titles.
Among these, plasma has more than 300 divisions. Of these, nuclear
fusion has more than 100 divisions. If you click on nuclear fusion, you
go to cold fusion, with 24 divisions. From there you can go to any one
of these sites.
You may narrow your search on any desired topic by clicking
progressively in the directory site. Similar search facility is
available at the site http://dir.yahoo.com. When you find a site very
useful and think that you would want to visit it again, add it to the
list of your favourites or bookmark it.
Record the searches
Whenever data is downloaded from a site, it is essential that you record
the URL and the date of access. This information may have to be
indicated in your bibliography. Remember that some sites may vanish
later; still your record will remain valid.
If you want to find out the source of a certain well-known passage, you
can find it using the Internet. Suppose you do not know the source of
the famous quote "Cowards die many times before their deaths." You type
this as keywords and imitate a search. You will immediately know that it
is from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (II, ii, 32-37).
Using e-mails
Yet another use of the Internet is the e-mail through which you can
quickly and easily exchange ideas with other scholars or experts
stationed elsewhere. When you have to discuss a point in detail with a
person in a distant place, the facility of a chat room may be used.
Against all these merits of the Internet, there is a serious
disadvantage with regard to the reliability of the contents. Articles in
professional journals of quality get published only after they are
scrutinised by experts in the field. Reputed publishers would bring out
books only after they are read and recommended by experts or critics.
Matter that appears in the Internet cannot claim this kind of authority.
Researchers should never swallow hook, line, and sinker whatever comes
to them from the Net, without analysing it and confirming its
acceptability. The scrutiny of material from the Internet has to be more
severe.
You may check the reputation and credibility of the author as reflected
in his other works. Also, you may crosscheck the information furnished
by visiting other sources.
Positive results from "peer review" offer credibility to some extent.
Such review is a process of assessment within a community of experts to
regulate and control research activity.
This process ensures that the methodology is sound, and that interpretation of data may not lead to erroneous conclusions.
B.S. WARRIER
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