The document discusses effective research techniques for finding reliable information online. It covers using Boolean operators, phrase searching, and proximity searches to refine results. Common words like "and", "or" are ignored by search engines as stop words. When evaluating sources, it is important to consider the author's purpose, objectivity, accuracy, reliability, currency, and links. The document also provides strategies for keeping track of useful websites like bookmarking, citations, or RSS feeds.

1. American InterContinental University
Cindy Broyles
THE IMPORTANCE OF
RESEARCHING EFFECTIVELY

2. EFFECTIVE SEARCHING
² Research that comes from just any resource can be questionable.
² By using techniques that ensure that the information that is being used
is correct and not ambiguous.
² With search engines containing billions of resources from websites,
journals, news feeds, blogs, and other online information centers. How is
it that a researcher can ensure their information is correct and of good
quality?
Punjab University, n.d.

3. EFFECTIVE SEARCHING
² Boolean operators
² Phrase and proximity searching
² Adjacent words ADJ
² Stop words
Search engines work by taking your input and
using tools within them to find what you want.
Punjab University, n.d.

4. EFFECTIVE SEARCHING
Searching with Boolean basics tools.
² The quotation mark “w”
² Common Words or the ignored
² Excluding words –word
² OR allows more then one term dog OR cat
² AND allows both searches dog AND cat
Searching with Boolean advanced tools.
² AND NOT dog AND NOT cat will remove any search were cat appears
even if dog is mentioned
² NEAR dog NEAR cat requires both terms to be present and can possibly
be limited depending on the search engine to a set number of words apart.
² ( ) requires that words in the ( ) be searched first and can be added to by
(one) AND (two) making it required that both words be present
Baker, n.d.

5. EFFECTIVE SEARCHING
University of Nottingham, Ningbo China, n.d.
Understand how Phrases and Proximity searches work
² The Phrase looks for commonly placed words such as
² Heavy weight boxing or Horse Racing
² Proximity looks for words that are near each other
² By searching seasonal AND weather these terms will appear near
each other .
² Adjacent wording (ADJ) can be limited by adding a number after it.
² Place ADJ in weather ADJ season and the search will look for
² seasonal weather or weather seasonal
² Add a number after ADJ to increase space or decrease the space
information found has between the two words
² Seasonal ADJ5 Weather and you might get “Oregon beach goers
look for seasonal storms and nice weather before going beach
combing.”

6. EFFECTIVE SEARCHING
Manning, Raghaven, Schütze, 2009
Stop Words
These words are so common that they are excluded from search engines as
being irrelevant to finding the information Manning, Raghaven, Schütze
(2009) list 25 of these stop words as
a an and are as
at be by for from
has he in is it
its of on that the
to was were will with

7. USE OF PRIMARY SOURCES
² When researching a topic the orignial source recorded
from direct study gives a first hand account of the
topic that has not been diluted by any other source
through paraphrasing or alteration. This is why these
resources are so valuable.
² Giving the author and publisher credit ensures that
these first hand resources are varifiable and easy to
return to should more study me needed.
Library of Congress, n.d.

8. ² Websites may contain bias
² Be false information
² Sources may be misquoted
² Ensure the quality of information
THE IMPORTANCE OF
VERIFYING SOURCES
Perdue OWL, 2013

9. THE IMPORTANCE OF VERIFYING
RESOURCES
Georgetown University, 2014
Are all the results true?
The answer to this is no. Some resources contain fact that has been
clouded by bias, or may even be completely false information. By
review the site and asking these few questions a better chance at
understanding the credibility of a site.
Author Purpose Objective
Accuracy Reliability Currency
Links

10. While researching a multitude of information is found, it is easy for a
researcher to loos a website that had quality information on their topic.
Keeping track of the websites can be done in a variety of ways.
² Online website tracker
² RSS Feed for websites that are RSS capable
² Bookmarking sites
² Create a document that contains the author title and link
² A hand written ledger of sites
² Keeping a running citation list
² The web browsing history is also an option but may take a lot of time to
search through to find that one special site if the researcher remembers the
name of that site.
STRATEGIES FOR KEEPING TRACK
OF FLUID SOURCES ON THE WEB
Georgetown University, 2014

11. STRATEGIES FOR KEEPING TRACK
OF FLUID SOURCES ON THE WEB
Some RSS and Site tracking tools are
• Feedspot
• Bloglines
• NewsGator
• Pluck
• My Yahoo
• iGoogle
• Weave
• Diggo
• Xmarks

12. References
Baker, J. (n.d.) Basic search tips and advanced Boolean explained. University of California, Berkeley retrieved from
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Boolean.pdf
Manning, C. D., Raghaven, P, Schütze, H. (2009). Introduction to information retrieval. Cambridge University Press, England retrieved from
http://nlp.stanford.edu/IR-book/pdf/irbookonlinereading.pdf
No Author (n.d.). Effective searching strategies and techniques. Getting the most from electronic information resources. Punjab University Library
retrieved from http://library.pu.edu.pk/DL/Effective_searching_techniques.pdf.
No Author (n.d.). Advanced search skills introduction to phrase searching. University of Nottingham, Ningbo, China retrieved from http://
www.nottingham.edu.cn/en/is/study-skills/research/advanced-search-skills/phrase-proximity.aspx
No Author (June, 2012). Using Boolean operators. Dick Smith Library, Tarleton State University retrieved from http://www.tarleton.edu/
departments/library/tutorials/search_tips/search_tips3.html
No Author (2014). Evaluating internet resources. Georgetown University Library, Washington DC, retrieved from http://
www.library.georgetown.edu/tutorials/research-guides/evaluating-internet-content
No Author (February, 2013). Evaluating sources of information. Perdue University retrieved from https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/
553/1/
No Author (2014). About RSS feed. Mishcon de Reya New York LLP retrieved from. http://www.mishconnewyork.com/siteinformation/about_rss
REFERENCES