Searching Online

You all know what a search engine is?

You may not know the phrase search engine but you will all have used one at one point.

The better known ones are: GOOGLE, YAHOO, BING

Google is probably one of the best known search engines, and in fact many of us don't say " Let's check the internet" we tend to say " Let's google it!"

Search engines are just websites in themselves set up to help us navigate the millions of other websites we have online. They have their own fancy search tools built in to help us get the best results when searching which will be explained in detail later on.

What are we using the search engine for? What information do we need?

Is it fact finding? - For example what year did Winston Churchill die? That should be the same answer on any website you look at.

Is it research? This is the more detailed option where we look for information on the internet, but at the same time involves reading, analysing, assessing and interpreting information.

Using search engines.

Using Keywords

Whilst both searching and researching involves a little bit of thought about the words we use, it is worth spending a little more time using some of the tools on offer to ensure you accurately and effectively research your topic.

What words best describe your topic? What words are you going to type into your search engine box? Try as few as possible and avoid unnecessary ones.

All search engines work by looking at the words you type in the search box and will attempt to find the websites where most of the words appear, and not necessarily where they appear next to one another (this will be covered later). There is therefore little point in writing in questions or using conversational words in a search box. It is not like you are asking a friend a question so you don't have to phrase it in that way. That being said, some of the websites are changing the way in which they interpret the information you put in the search box just because they know so many of us ask them questions!

What type of information do you need?

By now most of us will know how to search for an image only in a search engine but how many of us know that by using the advanced search options in many search engines we can limit our search to looking for ONLY what we need, for example, a map, video or graph.

Does the information you need have a life span on it?

All search engines will allow you to look for information on websites that have been UPDATED within a certain time frame. For example, in Modern Studies, if you were looking for information about a particular Election or you needed up to date statistics for a discursive essay you can specify that you only want to look at websites that have been updated in the last 24 hours, week, month or year or custom period of time.

Are you researching information about something that is only relevant to the UK or world wide?

When looking at a list of websites you can sometimes guess where the websites originates from, for example, if it ends in co.uk then it has been created in the UK but the .com and .org websites may not be so easy to tell so it makes a lot more sense that if you are looking for UK only information to use the advanced search options of your search engine to specify this. A tell tale sign of copying and pasting for examiners and teachers is when pupils have copied an American spelling from an American website and not corrected it!

While we are on the subject of endings. URLs, or website addresses as we most commonly refer to them, give us a helpful hint as to what kind or organisation the information comes from. This could help us decide what websites to use and which ones that might not be relevant to us just from looking at the results list.

co.uk - as said above, this will be a company or organisation based in the uk, e.g. www.bbc.co.uk

.com - similarly this could be in the uk but also is used worldwide.

.org - generally used by charities and non profit organisations. Websites that might have very useful information but will probably concentrate on one topic so some of the information might be emotive, give you information from one point of view and this will need to be reflected in your evaluation of the information.

.gov - most local and national government websites will end with .gov.uk. If you were looking for local statistics or information about who your local MP is then going to your local government webpage should guarantee you accurate information.

.ac.uk - depending on your age/stage then a website ending with ac.uk could be something you would want to avoid or something that is really relevant to your studies. Most higher education websites will end with this so if you are only in S1 you might not be needing university level information but if you are in S6 doing your Highers or Advanced Highers then this may be the place for you.

Other hints and tips for searching

Phrase Searching

Exclamation/speech marks - At the top of this page I spoke about the way in which search engines look for the websites where most of the words you are looking for appear in a website. To further refine your search using speech marks at either end of a phrase will make the search engine only look for the websites where the words appear next to each other in a website rather than appearing anywhere on the site. You may think this happens anyway without using the speech marks because most of the time the websites that appear at the top of the "Hit List" will be ones where these words appear together but you will be surprised how much more accurate and useful this little tool can be when looking for more specific information.e.g.“Homelessness in Scotland”.

Note: There are a lot of websites that pay for their websites towards the top of a hit list because they know that we all read the first one on the page!