Doing research without leaving your classroom sounds great

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Doing research without leavingyour classroom
sounds greatHow to make the web meet
yourexpectation.
Adapted from a workshop by Pat McDougall
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The World Wide Web

• more than 1 billion publicly available documents.
  
• no one engine searches everything on the Web
• search their own database
• E.g.
• www.altavista.com
• www.thebighub.commetasearch
• www.infoseek.com

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Web-Words

• web site
• URL Uniform Resource Locator
• HTML Hypertext Markup Language
• Internet an electronic communications network
  that connects computer networks and
  organizational computer facilities around the
  world (Merriam-Websters on the web)

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Searching

• Be Specific in your keywords!
• If you want information on the 1998 Volkswagen
  Beetle
• Don't ask for cars
• Dont ask for Volkswagens
• Ask for 1998 Volkswagen Beetles

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Plus and - Minus

• Using the sign to add words
• translates as must have
• use the minus symbol to exclude words
• schoolsNova Scotia-elementary
• what if you want to search for information about
  Prince Edward Island?
• princeedwardisland

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Phrase Searching

• You could get a site that talks about Prince
  Edward vacationing on an island anywhere
• Phrase search terms appear in exactly the order
  you specify
• Prince Edward Island
• capitals vs. small case
• use the to target multiple forms of the same
  word
• sun sun, sunlight, sunshine, sunny, etc

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Advanced Searching

• Boolean
• AND, NOT, NEAR
• group terms within parentheses
• (database OR software) NEAR (engineer AND
  experience)
• target specific fields
• anchor
• domain
• image
• title
• url
• camping NOT tents AND domainca

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Scavenger hunt

1. Find the surface temperature of the sun.
2. Who is Bernie Dodge?
3. Is it too late for the Head-Smashed-In-Pow Wow
   this year?
4. How long do you boil a haggis?
5. What colour is a Polar Bears skin?
6. How many different kinds of microbes live on or
   in the human body?