CT231: Research & search skills
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description
Notes for Week 3 of CT231 Professional Skills, with some advice on why/when to use various search engines; how to validate search results; and being aware of the limitations of personalised search results.
Transcript of CT231: Research & search skills
Stages of Research
Define the research question
(THINK before you SEARCH)
Read & Refine
Read selectively, actively, critically
Research Tools
Search engines, Wikipedia
Google Scholar
Advanced Search
Library resources:Books,
Electronic journals,
Databases
Read Selectively
• select the LATEST / CURRENT
• select the most RELEVANT
• select by RELIABILITY(e.g. Source? Bias? Bibliography?)
• select by AMOUNT
www. cnn.com
How to read a URL
domain name
nike.com
rte.ie
bbc.co.uk
gla.ac.uk
mit.edu
moma.org
How to read a URL: domain names
www.cdsinet.net/users/bartlett
www.alphalink.com.au/~jdm/index.htm
www.splcenter.org
www.crusader.net
What do these URLS tell you?
R Read the URL
E Examine the content
A Check out the site Author / Owner
L Look at the links
How to validate information on the web
Check out the Wayback Machine at:
www.archive.org
SEARCH: some questions...
1. How do I find recent articles?
2. How do I find Irish examples?
3. How do I find recent journal articles?
4. How do I get full text of articles, if not available on Google Scholar?
search...there’s more!
CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 catd_mitchell
Personalised search means that the search results we are served are based on what we have clicked on in the past...
Search technologies make the world's information “universally accessible”, as Google's motto puts it, but it is not “making universal knowledge universally accessible”.
Siva VaidhyanathanThe Googlization of Everything
Your filter bubble is a unique, personal universe of information created just for you by an array of personalizing filters. It’s invisible and it’s becoming more and more difficult to escape.
“We are turning media into a mirror that reflects our own prejudices back at us. Even worse, services like Google and Facebook distort the mirror so that it exaggerates our grosser characteristics. Without our knowing, they reshape our information worlds according to their interpretation of our interests.”
Eli PariserThe Filter Bubble
digital literacy
Be Selective & Critical – in your search and your reading
• Select the LATEST / CURRENT information
• Select by RELIABILITY (e.g. source, bias, bibliography)
• Evaluate the AUTHORITY of the author/website
• check the URL• check “About Me”• check the links to/from
• If in doubt, check the Wayback Machine: www.archive.org
