Internet Research Skills
Search in google:
Internet Research Skills is a clear and concise guide to the effective use of the Internet for students in the social sciences. The open web is becoming central to student research practice, not least because of its accessibility, and this clear text describes search strategies and outlines the critical skills necessary to deal with such diverse and disorganized materials. Internet Research Skills covers all of the essential aspects of Internet research, with each chapter containing a number of illustrations, inset boxes, and short exercises. The first half of the book deals with publications online, devoting separate chapters to the academic articles, books, official publications and news sources which form the core secondary sources for social science research. The second half of the book deals with the open web, a vast and confusing realm of materials, many of which have no direct print counterpart. Key Features: Inset boxes, including search tips, technical explanations, examples and warning tips on avoiding common pitfalls Exercises at the end of each chapter that cover the key skills Worked examples throughout the book, drawing on a range of social science disciplines Illustration with relevant screengrabs This concise and accessible introduction to Internet research skills will be a perfect guide for undergraduate students carrying out research projects and for postgraduate students working on theses and dissertations.
Figures and Tables viiList of Boxes ixAcknowledgements xiIntroduction 1Why not just search Google? 1Who this book is aimed at 2Understanding the Internet 3Summary of chapters 4Books 6Print publications online 6Library catalogues 11Online bookshops 15Full-text books online 16Book reviews 22Publishers 23Exercises 23Articles 26Understanding academic articles 26Managing references 29CrossRef 30Annual Reviews 31Google Scholar 31Windows Live Academic 34Indexing and abstracting databases 34Specialized subject databases 43Full-text articles online 46Publishers 49Open access 51Other article databases 53Theses and dissertations 54Exercises 55Subject guides 59Searching the open web 59Academic subject guides 62Universal subject guides 66Understanding web addresses 69Understanding websites 72Exercises 76Searching the keyword search engines 78Introduction 78The big four 79Advanced searching 81Comparing the search engines 84Meta search engines 85Comparing search engines with meta search engines 86Boolean searching 87How search engines search 88Devising search queries 89Look before you leap 93Technical difficulties 94Exercises 95Interaction, news and multimedia 98Interaction 98Email lists 104Discussion groups 107News 110Multimedia 113Exercises 119Governments, archives and statistics Niall O Dochartaigh Patricia Sleeman 123Introduction 123Governments 124Archives 131Statistics 136Exercises 140Evaluation and citation 143Introduction 143Classification 144Evaluation 148Citation 153Exercises 160Bibliography 162Index 164
