Web Research

1
Web Research

• Angela Benson
• Assistant Professor
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

2
Agenda

• Internet versus Web
• Searching the Web
• Subject directories
• Search engines
• Discussion list searches
• Search strategies
• Web site evaluation
• Searching the Deep Web
• Issues
• Citing Web Resources
• Plagiarism
• Questions and Wrap-Up

3
Definitions

• Internet
• A vast global network of millions of computers
• Web
• A system of Internet servers that support
  specially formatted documents.
• The World Wide Web is a way of accessing
  information over the Internet.
• Source http//www.webopedia.com/

4
What is the Web

• URL Uniform Resource Locator
• protocol//host/path/filename
• http//faculty.ed.uiuc.edu/abenson/trio/web_resear
  ch.ppt
• Protocol http
• Host faculty.ed.uiuc.edu
• Path abenson, trio
• Filename internet_research.ppt

5
Domain Names (for hosts)

• .com commercial
• .edu education
• .gov U.S. government
• .org non-profit organization
• .net network access provider
• .mil military
• Country
• .uk United Kingdom
• .ca Canada
• Not absolutes!

6
Web Directories

• General topics to explore
• Good for browsing topics
• Maintained by people, many times experts or
  authorities
• Examples
• http//www.yahoo.com, Commercial
• User-submitted sites
• http//infomine.ucr.edu, Academic
• Academically reviewed and approved sites

7
Search Engines

• Program finds and indexes sites
• Keyword search, more specific
• Good when searching for something specific
• Examples
• http//www.google.com/
• http//www.alltheweb.com (meta-search engine)
• http//www.askjeeves.com
• http//www.google.com

8
Discussion Lists

• Mailing lists and newsgroup directories
• Examples
• http//www.liszt.com/ (mailing lists)
• http//www.google.com/ (newsgroups)

9
Search Strategy Questions

• What do you want to know?
• What are the key concepts or topics?
• What keywords define those concepts/topics?
  (include synonyms)
• What is the relationship between the keywords?
• How does the search tool youre using require you
  to specify that relationship?

10
Useful URLs

• Web Search Cheat Sheet
• http//www.colosys.net/search/
• Find Spot
• http//findspot.com/

11
Search Exercise

• Find sites on an area of interest to you

12
Evaluating Web Resources

• Points to consider
• Purpose
• Author, Publisher
• Intended Audience
• Perspective
• Currency
• Accuracy
• Links
• Evaluation Guides
• http//lib.nmsu.edu/instruction/eval.html
• http//www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Int
  ernet/Evaluate.html
• http//www.library.cornell.edu/okuref/research/web
  eval.html

13
Deep Web

• Web databases not accessible by search engines
• Many fee-based
• Also called invisible Web
• A White Paper
• http//www.brightplanet.com/deepcontent/tutorials/
  DeepWeb/index.asp
• Examples
• University Library, e.g., http//www.library.uiuc.
  edu/
• Virtual Library, e.g., http//www.vlibrary.org/

14
Deep Web Exercise

• Find resources available to you
• University
• Local Library

15
Citing Web Resources

• Web Citations
• http//www.library.georgetown.edu/internet/cite.ht
  m
• Citation Managers
• EndNote at http//www.isiresearchsoft.com/
• RefWorks at http//www.refworks.com/
• Article about the two
• http//www.istl.org/02-summer/article4.html

16
Plagiarism

• What it is
• Using ideas and expressions without citing the
  source.
• Why its easier on the Web
• Copy-and-paste
• Buying papers online
• How to spot it
• http//www.plagiarism.org/
• How to prevent it
• Inform students
• More information
• http//www.lib.duke.edu/libguide/citing.htm

17
Useful URLs

• University of Michigan School of Information
• http//www.ipl.org/
• University of Albany Library
• http//library.albany.edu/internet/
• UC-Berkeley Library
• http//www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Int
  ernet/FindInfo.html