Ina Midkiff (512) 223-2072, CYP Room 1066, ina@austincc.edu
http://www.austincc.edu/ina

Austin Community College

Doing Research on the Web


Introduction

Before you begin your Web search please read the information on this page.

The Web is not like the library. It has no card catalog. There is no central authority that lists where specific sites are located. This is why we "surf" in order to find specific information. Many public Web sites are inaccurate, outdated, and biased. It is important that you look at public Web sites with a critical eye. There are some exceptions -- government Web sites, such as the US Census Bureau, and the Learning Resource Online Databases here at ACC. Scholarly research should be worthy research that can be documented as to its authenticity. When you read information on the Web you should take the time to verify the information before you use it in your paper.

Marketing Research information is categorized as either primary data or secondary data. Primary data are collected specifically for a particular research problem. Secondary data are those already collected for some other purpose and are available from many sources. Most of the information on the Web is secondary data and therefore may be too specific to be valid or out-of-date. Compare different sources for the same information. Where the source is listed is important. In the United States, top-level domains normally consist of one of the following: .edu is education, .com is commercial, .gov is government, .mil is military, .net is network support centers, and .org is other organizations. Typically a source from .edu, means that the source is from an institution of higher education. This includes official school sites as well as pages by faculty, staff, and students. If it is .gov, the source is from the federal government and .tx.us means that the source is from Texas state government. For instance most community colleges in Texas end in .cc.tx.us, as does this current directory. Again, these include official school sites as well as pages by faculty, staff, and maybe students.

When an individual business, or organization wants a domain name, at this point in the US, usually they choose one of .com, .org, or .net. Usually .org means it is a non-profit organization or an individual, where .com means a commercial enterprise, and .net means that it is an enterprise engaged in providing Internet services. However, there is no check or "policing" to this separation.

Where the source is listed is important, typically a source from, .edu, .gov, .mil, or .org, is more reliable than .com.

Using Search Engines

Search engines all have the same basic user interface but they can be very different in how they perform the search. The three distinct styles of search engines are hierarchical, collection, and concept.

Hierarchical Search Engines are built on a subject-oriented guide. Yahoo! Is the best example of a hierarchical search engine. All sites must fit into a certain category. These sites are good for general searches but have limitations. Yahoo! Doesn't actually perform a search of the Web, it contains only submissions. This means that much of the information on the Web is missing from their database.

Collection Search Engines use an automated program that crawls around the Web and collects information. AltaVista is the best collection search engine.

Concept Search Engines, such as Excite, use concepts instead of words. This can be an efficient way to search but many of the Web sites such as Excite are not as comprehensive as AltaVista.

Research attorney Aaron Flin created Dogpile when he got frustrated finding too few results with subject-oriented indexes like Yahoo, and then trying key word search engines like AltaVista that returned 30,000 or more documents in response to the same query. It is a metasearch engine that sends your Web queries to Yahoo!, Lycos A2Z, Excite Guide, World Wide Web Worm, WWW Yellow Pages, What U Seek, Lycos WebCrawler, InfoSeek, OpenText, AltaVista, Excite, and HotBot. Dogpile.com is an excellent Web search engine. It will save you time and give you a more complete picture of the information available.

Once you find the site go to the index to help locate information. Many large sites have a search engine on their home page. Most searches will be open text; key word searches or subject tree, like using a book index. In general when you are searching do not use capital letters. However, if you are looking for a city, 'Happy," use capital letter to exclude the term "happy," from the search. Try using quotation marks to indicate words that must be right next to each other. Be careful in word selection. If I use the word "butterfly" I will get insects and swimmers. Be sure to add additional words to qualify the original term. Use a plus when the word should appear in the text and a minus when you want text without that word appearing (e.g., + "Internet course" - university).

Search engines work best when you have a clear picture of what information you need and if you stay focused. It is up to you to determine how useful the information you find really is. You should test the information by searching for the same subject in several engines and other sources.

Jump to my Web Search page and find all the major search engines listed.

Using the Learning Resource Indexes and Reference Databases
Online to Conduct Scholarly Searches

A main problem of searching for information on the Internet is that the Web is a public resource. One way to filter out bad information is to use search engines that restrict themselves to so-called scholarly information that has been published in refereed journals. The advantage for students at ACC in credit and non-credit classes is the LRS provides this information for free. These databases are very expensive and closed to most non- academic sites.

The Learning Resource Center here at Austin Community College has its Indexes and Reference Databases on the Web. If you logon and go to the online activation form you can complete an online activation form so that you can access the information on your own computer. You must have a valid ACC ID that you can get from the Admission's office or by completing the online activation form. You will validate your status, set up your PIN, set up your browser, and go to the databases. Here you will find many databases that give you direct access to business periodicals. You will have access to databases such as the Business Source Elite - It has more than 750 business periodicals with full text. The Wall Street Journal is just one of the periodicals you can access. This is definitely worth the extra time and effort.

You will be required to set up your computer so that you can receive these reference databases at home or work. There will be an assignment in your coursework that will require access to these databases. The staff at the LRS is very helpful so feel free to ask for their assistance if you have any problems.

Questions To Ask When You Find A Site

Here are some questions to ask yourself before you begin your evaluation.

Bibliographic Style for Citing Internet Resources

Scholarly writing is more than your thoughts on a specific topic. Research is conducted to discover what other people have discovered and documented. Using the Internet to conduct scholarly writing requires in-text citations because Web documents are not paginated. There are three style guides that use in-text citations that are appropriate for use on Web pages. They are the American Psychological Association (APA) method, the Modern Language Association (MLA) style, and the Chicago Manual of Style (CMS). At the Interlit Web site, http://www.hartnell.cc.ca.us/faculty/jlagier/intres/index.html you will find examples of term papers written in these three styles. For most business related courses the CMS style is probably the best choice. Check with your instructor to see if they have a preference.

I have no preference as to which style you use. Generally the APA style is used for psychology classes and social sciences. The MLA style is often used for papers written in English and Humanities courses. The CMS is used for a broad range of disciplines. For complete examples jump to http://www.uvm.edu/~ncrane/estyles/

Guidelines for Internet Copyright

Copyright Laws on the Internet are debated on an ongoing basis. The Consortium of College and University Media Centers (CCUMC) has issued a set of guidelines for the educational fair use of new media.

DOWNLOADING

As a student you are permitted to download into your term papers certain portions of copyrighted works. Those include:

When in doubt, always request permission from the person or agency holding the copyright to the resource you wish to include. Be sure to document by using the in-text reference I mentioned earlier. If an image includes a copyright notice, it is unethical to remove the copyright notice from the image.

LINKING

There is an alternative to downloading an Internet resource into your paper. You may link to its URL instead. For example, suppose you want my picture from my Vita to appear as an illustration in your term paper. "There's a picture of my professor at http://www2.austin.cc.tx.us/ina/vita.htm." Instead of downloading the image to your computer and making it part of your term paper locally, you link to the image's URL, thereby saving disk space on your computer. Remember this could cause problems if my Web site is down or I decide to move it. If it is important to keep these files, download those portions to your computer and put them in the same folder your paper is in.

Useful Links

Jump to my Web Search page and find all the major search engines listed.

Web Domain Name

If you decide that you want to have your own Domain site, here's how you register a name:

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