Searching and Evaluating information

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Searching and Evaluating information

• How should I search for information in the
  library?

Created 10-12-04 Angela Luke
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What are we going to do?

• Learn some basic terms when computing
• Develop some search strategies to help YOU find
  information
• Introduce databases and the Internet
• Learn some fancy tricks to help you navigate
  the online databases here at school

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Basic Terms

• So What is a Search Engine?
• Anybody????
• A search engine is like a folder, and inside the
  folder there are individual pages of information.
  Search Engines allow YOU to type in key words and
  phrases to locate websites that are related to
  your interest or search. Examples

• Search Engine Examples

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Basic Terminology (cont.)

• What is a Website?
• A website is much like a book. They contain
  information about people places, and other cool
  stuff. They are just in electronic format. They
  have words, images, animations, and information.
• The Web consists of millions of "pages" or
  screens of text and graphics that have built-in
  links to other pages on the Internet.

• A website is similar to a magazine with the
  first page of the site being the cover. Examples
  

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Yahooligans
CBS television
McDonalds
Samurai Jack
NFL Page
An example of All the different pages
(websites) inside of the search engine
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Basic Terminology (cont.)

• What is a database?
• A large collection of articles, newspapers, and
  information that is picked by professionals and
  shared and stored for people to access.
• Did you know there are many databases at the
  Lafayette Homepage?
• How many?
• Examples are
• Lafayette School Site Databases

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Database Vs. Internet

• Internet
• Information comes from anybody!!!
• Unregulated Information
• Use search engine to locate information sources
• Good Idea to use after you have a base of
  informtation from a reliable source such as a
  database.

• Database
• Information picked by a professional and is
  reliable
• Regulated Information
• Use keyword search to locate information
• Use first when researching

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Searching Terms to help you find information

• When you are searching for information use
  keyword searches.
• A keyword search is a term used to locate what
  your looking for. It is used for both the
  Internet and databases.
• Lets look at a search we can conduct with both
  the Internet and a Database.
• Example http//www.google.com/
  

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How to Narrow Your Search

• After typing in your Keyword use AND to help
  narrow your search!!!
• When you use AND the computer will only search
  sites that have both of your keywords.

• AND

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Searching Using AND
Tricks
Skateboarding
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What do we get???
Skatingboarding Tricks
Skateboarding
Tricks
Lets Practice Novel Database Jr. Edition
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Evaluating a Website

• NOT ALL WEBSITES HAVE GOOD INFORMATION!!!!!
• Imagine that, all the sites you look at might not
  be reliable!!!!!
• So how do you know if a website is good or not?

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The 5 Ws of Web Site Evaluation

• Who Who wrote the web page? Can you find their
  name? What kind of education do they have?
• What Does the author say what their purpose of
  the site is? Is the site easy to navigate? Is
  there lots of advertisements, text, color,
  pictures?
• When When was this site created? Is it updated
  regularly? Does it have a date on it?
• Where Where does the information come from? Is
  the website a .com, Is the information one sided
  or bias?
• Why Why is this information useful? Why is
  this page better than all the others? Does this
  page correlate with the databases or print
  sources information on the subject?

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Some Considerations

• Be sure you spell the words correctly
• Do you know how to navigate the search engine
  your looking at?
• Try multiple websites, search terms, and
  databases to get your information

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Lets Practice

• In partners go through the checklist provided and
  evaluate these two websites.
• http//zapatopi.net/treeoctopus.html
• http//www.mbayaq.org/efc/efc_fo/fo_oct_exhibit.as
  pf
• you finish early go into the schooldatabases and
  search for octopus information.