Assignment #7

USING GENERAL WEB SEARCH TOOLS

Due: March 14

Reading:

• Using General Web Search Tools
• Optional:
  • "Unraveling the Web" (S.F. Chronicle article)
    

1. Each team, as a group, should communicate via e-mail to:

• rewrite or change (if necessary) the research question that you used for Assignment 6, and complete a search worksheet for the question (reuse or change your previous worksheet, as needed).

2. Each individual student should write your current research question and a search worksheet for your question and complete searches based on that question for the web search tools in questions 3, 4 & 5 below.

3. Use Yahoo! (general subject directory) to try to find web pages related to the original general subject of your question (i.e. for Team #1: privacy on the internet; for Team #2: copyright on the internet.)

• a. What were the exact search words you used?
• b. How many categories (Yahoo's term for subject headings) did you find that were related to your topic?
• c. How many sites did you find that were related to your topic?
• d. Save the best web page you found from Yahoo! as an html file with the file name 7-3.html
• e. Copy the full URL (Internet address) for each page you selected. (When writing the URL, please include the complete address beginning with: http:// )

4. Use InfoMine (selective subject directory) to try to find web pages related to the original general subject of your question (i.e. for Team #1: privacy on the internet; for Team #2: copyright on the internet.) Select the "Multiple Database Searching" choice on the first InfoMine page.

• a. What were the exact search words you used to search?
• b. How many sites did you find?
• c. Save the best web page you found using InfoMine as an html file named 7-4.html
• d. Copy the full URL (Internet address) for the page you selected. (When writing the URL, please include the complete address beginning with: http:// )

5. Use the Web search engine assigned to your team:

• Team #1: Google
• Team #2: Northern Light

to try to find web sites as closely related to your specific research question as possible (all concepts should be included when using a search engine.)

• a. Which search engine did you use?
• b. What were the exact search words (including any operators, truncation, fields, etc.) you used?
• c. How many sites did you find?
• d. Save the best web page you found using the search engine as an html file named 7-5.html
• e. Copy the full URL (Internet address) for the page you selected. (When writing the URL, please include the complete address beginning with: http:// )

6. Optional/Extra credit: use any one of the meta-search engines listed in the reading to try to find web sites as closely related to your question as possible (all concepts should be included when using a meta-search engine.)

• a. Which meta-search engine did you use?
• b. What were the exact search words (including any operators, truncation, fields, etc.) you used?
• c. How many sites did you find?
• d. Save the best web page you found using the search engine as an html file named 7-6.html
• e. Copy the full URL (Internet address) for the page you selected. (When writing the URL, please include the complete address beginning with: http:// )

7. How did using the web search tools compare to using the periodical databases used in the last 3 assignments (InfoTrac, WilsonWeb & Proquest databases) in terms of the search process and in the results of your searches?

8. Members of each team should:

Use e-mail to discuss:

• what were the titles and complete URL's of the 2 best web pages each member found on your topic.
• what were the titles and complete URL's of the 4 best web pages from those that all the members found.
• any general comments on how you feel your research process is progressing for your research question.

Use the discussion board to post:

• the title and complete URL for the four web pages your team agreed were the best on your research question.

SUBMIT ASSIGNMENT

E-mail: your answers to: brenner@smcccd.cc.ca.us
Be sure to include answers to all questions and attach the files for questions #3, 4, 5 and 6 (if you do the extra-credit question). Be sure you saved all of the files as html files with the file names specified above.

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These materials are copyrighted but may be used for educational purposes if you inform and credit the author and cite the source as: LSCI 105 Online Research. All commercial rights are reserved. Send comments or suggestions to: Eric Brenner at brenner@smcccd.cc.ca.us