Civic 2.0 Training Course Module 2. Online Research Basics

Civic 2.0 Training Course
Module 2. Online Research Basics
Instructor Guide
Version 1.0
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2 Civic 2.0 Instructor Guide

Table of Contents
Module Objectives.......................................................................................................5
The Research Process ..................................................................................................6
How Do You Approach Online Research? .......................................................................6
Locating Information in the Online World ....................................................................7
Where Do You Look for Information? .............................................................................7
Accessing Information on the Open Web ...................................................................11
Searching with Spiders?.................................................................................................11
Search Engine Limitations .............................................................................................11
The Three “R’s”..............................................................................................................12
Structuring Your Search for Excellent Results .............................................................13
How Do You Structure a Search?...................................................................................13
Search Option #1 - Simplified Key Word Search........................................................13
Exercise 1...................................................................................................................13
Exercise 1 - The Results .............................................................................................14
Option #2 – Boolean Logic Search.............................................................................14
Exercise 2...................................................................................................................16
Option #3 - Advanced Searching and Power Tools....................................................17
Exercise 3...................................................................................................................20
Why Use Open Web Directories?..................................................................................21
How Credible Are Your Search Results ?......................................................................22
Putting Search Results to Good Use ...........................................................................23
What about Citations and Copyright Restrictions?.......................................................23
Additional Support: How Can You Learn More About Online Research?....................24
Summary....................................................................................................................25
Assessment and Knowledge Check.............................................................................26
Lesson One: Structuring Your Search for Excellent Results..........................................26
Lesson 2 – Question and Answer...................................................................................27
Module 2. Online Research Basics 3
© Copyright 2011, Blue Ocean Logic

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Online Research Basics
Module Objectives
In Module 2, you will learn the basics of conducting online
research. Topics covered include how to approach online
research; where to look for information; the three “R’s” when
utilizing search engines; and how to structure your search results
for excellent, credible results. Finally, you will receive an
introduction in utilizing citations and copyright restrictions.
Upon completion of this module, you should be able to:
• Manage your research time wisely to locate information
on line
• Describe the three “R’s” of search engines
• Structure your search for excellent results
• Determine the credibility of your search results
• Explain the correct use of citations and copyright
restrictions

The Research Process
How Do You Approach Online Research?
Managing your research time wisely means developing a research
plan/preparation. Before you begin your research efforts answer
a few important questions. Are you looking for:
• Government, business, trade, education or community
material?
• Very current material or is information from many years
ago and historical information appropriate?
• Introductory material or more advanced material that
assume the readers familiarity with the subject?
• A good but basic overview or an exhaustive search of
everything written on the subject?
• The complete text or content of articles or just the
summaries?
• Material that is readily available to public search engines
or limited to trade or limited access resources?
• Statistics, tables, graphs or images?
• Materials in specific languages or from other countries of
origin?
• Newspaper articles, video feeds and press releases?
• Social media sources, chat rooms, blogs and microblogs?
The answers to questions like these will allow you to understand
how to structure your search efforts and how to select the most
appropriate key words and phrases to produce the best search
results.
However, even the best formulated search plan will not work
everywhere or every time. Therefore managing your research
time wisely may also mean revising your search plan when your
needs don’t get met.

Locating Information in the Online World
Where Do You Look for Information?
The online information world is divided into five resource
categories:
The Open Web: The
portion of the web that you
can access easily with
standard tools like search
engines and directories that
catalog and categorize a broad range of sites on the web.
Popular Open Web search engines include:
• Google (www.google.com)
• Bing (www.bing.com)
• Yahoo! (www.yahoo.com)
• Ask.com (www.ask.com)
Open Web Directories:
Although not very
popular with researchers
as search engines
become more
sophisticated in their capabilities, Open Web directories that are
often used for research include:
• Open Directory (www.dmoz.org)
• WWW Virtual Library (www.vlib.org)
The Deep Web – Where
sites are accessible by
entering their URL but
often have content that is
hidden from or
unavailable to most search

engines. Some experts estimate that as much as 90 percent of the
content of the web is invisible to search engines.

The Social Web – The
content within social
networks like LinkedIn
and FaceBook, materials in blogs and microblogs like Twitter,
collaborative sites, discussion forums and user groups can be of
particular interest to your research but is only accessible through
specialized search tools. Specialized tools for searching and
aggregating content in the Social Web include:
• Whos Talkin (www.whostalkin.com)
• SamePoint (www.samepoint.com)
• Social Mention (www.socialmention.com)
The Gated Web: Sites
in this portion of the
web restrict access to
portions or all of their
content. Typically the
researcher must register and agree to pay a subscription fee for
access to the full content of these sites. Examples of Gated Web
sites include:
• Encyclopedia Britannica (www.britannica.com)
• ProQuest (www.proquest.com)
The Professional
Online Services: These
high-powered
aggregators of
information are critical
resources for
professional researchers. These services typically require hourly
or per article fees in addition to the costs to join or subscribe.
Some services will allow subscribers to search for free or at
reasonable costs to retrieve a summary or list of articles in their
search results. However, the full text versions of these articles are
only available for a fee. Professional Online Services with
reasonable fees include:
• Factiva (www.factiva.com)
• Dialog (www.dialogweb.com)

Accessing Information on the Open Web
Searching with Spiders?
Search Engine Indexing Programs
Believe it or not, search engines do not conduct a live, real-time
search of the web when you type your keywords into the search
field.
Instead they search already compiled indexes of the websites that
they have previously reviewed. The search engine starts with a
select database of websites, reviews each webpage and creates
relevant indexes. All of the useful words on the page are indexed
before the search engine looks for links to other websites. It goes
to each linked-to site, repeats the indexing process on those sites,
looks for more links to other sites, and continues this process. The
specific process, or algorithm, that a search engine uses to index
webpage content is referred to as the indexing program.
Search engine indexing programs rely upon sophisticated capture
tools referred to as spiders, (a reference to their method of
crawling across websites to identify useful words and content).
Since crawling the web is a time consuming process, it is easy to
predict the delay between the point in time that a webpage is
changed and when the spider gets around to identifying it.
Therefore, consider how many webpages are changing around the
world daily and you can easily understand how hundreds of
thousands or millions of pages of information exist in the Deep
Web and remain unavailable to Open Web searches until they are
indexed by search engines.
Search Engine Limitations
There are many pages that search engines cannot or won’t read at
all. Therefore, search engines miss a lot of the information that is
available in the web. Some of the limitations to Open Web search
engine indexing include:
• Newly added or recently changed websites, webpages and
especially blogs
• Spiders may not crawl deeply enough into a site to review
every page
Before you even
begin… spiders are
constantly
crawling over
webpages to
prepare them for
your search

• Spiders are often unable to read information on a site
when the format of the information is unfamiliar, (tables,
charts, graphs, images, audio and more)
• Most spiders cannot gain access to social networking sites,
many blogs and microblogs, collaborative sites and forums
• Spiders cannot gain access to restricted, membership and
fee-based websites. For example, since most of the articles
from professional and trade literature must be purchased,
they are only accessible through Gated Web or Online
Professional Service sources.
The Three “R’s”
Retrieval and Relevance Ranking
When you enter key words into a search engine, its retrieval
software evaluates your input and determines, the best way to
process your search.
The retrieval software determines whether all of the words, most
of the words, or any one word has to appear on a webpage and
what special instructions must be considered before that page is
retrieved. It recognizes words that are uncommon and might be
more important to your search. The software then compares this
information with the search engines index database and locates
entries that match your search. Now that the search engine has
located all of the indexed entries that match your search, it must
present this bulk information to you in a manner that is effectively
organized.
During the relevance ranking process the search engine uses
another algorithm to sort the retrieved information, often tens
of thousands of website listings, so that the ones it has
determined to be of the most value appear at the top of its list
of results.
Since search engines do not disclose the details of their relevance-
ranking process, no two search engines will retrieve and display
the same search results in the same order.
Once you have
entered your key
words… retrieval
software analyzes
your input and
figures out how to
process your search

Structuring Your Search for Excellent Results
How Do You Structure a Search?
Search Option #1 - Simplified Key Word Search
Most search engines and professional online services offer the
same simple option for beginning a search…typing key words
into their search field.
A typical search that begins this way will often produce results
that first display webpages where all of the search words were
found next to each other. Next up are the webpages where all of
the search words were found near each other, and last to appear
on the ranking are those where all of the words show up on the
same webpage but in no particular order.
Exercise 1
Use a simplified key word search in the following scenario:
This simplified search is a good starting point for beginning to
understand the availability of relevant information but it does
have its limitations. Since this type of key word search relies on
the search engines retrieval algorithm to evaluate the selection of
the indexed webpages and another algorithm to rank the
relevance of the retrieved material, you are trusting that these
search engines understand exactly what you are searching for. In
return for your trust you are often faced with a haystack of
irrelevant material to sift through for a few needles of useful
information.
In this scenario, you are looking for information on nutrition
for teenagers.
Go to your search engine (www.google.com) and enter your
key words, nutrition teenagers, in the search field. Write
down how many items appear in your search result sites.
To understand how a
search engine will
process your key word
search, refer to the
help files and search
tips pages before you
get started.

Exercise 1 - The Results
The results for Exercise 1 yielded more than 2.5 million results.
Most researchers will not allow this much flexibility within their
searches. Let’s find out how researchers use Boolean Logic and
other advanced search tools to limit their search results…
Option #2 – Boolean Logic Search
There are no search rules that all search engines follow when
presented with multiple words in your simplified key word
search.
When you enter the words, “teenagers nutrition”, in your key
word search, it might be interpreted as teenagers and nutrition;
or as teenagers OR nutrition. It might even be processed as the
exact phrase teenagers nutrition. To clarify your meaning and to
reduce the chances of getting the wrong results, some search
engines and all professional online services allow you to narrow
your search by performing a Boolean Search.
Boolean logic places operators such as AND, OR, and NOT,
between keywords or data to narrow the results of a key word
search. For example, using AND between two keywords in a
search retrieves information that only shows both keywords on
the same webpage or within the same document.

This Venn diagram on the previous page shows:
• The intersection of sets "A AND B" (only the central space
shared by both circles),
• The union of sets "A OR B" (all circles),
• The exclusive NOT case "set A NOT B" (all except the
central space shared by both circles).
The "universe of information" is represented by all the area
composed of both circles
Exercise 2
Use Boolean logic in the following scenario to narrow down the
results from your search results from Exercise 1:
for teenagers. Use the following operators in three Boolean
searches:
AND – finds all pages containing both of the specified
words or phrases: teenagers and nutrition
OR – finds pages containing at least one of the
specified words or phrases: teenagers or nutrition
NOT – finds pages that have none of the specified
words or phrases: teenagers not nutrition
Go to your search engine (www.google.com) and enter your
Boolean searches. Write down how many items appear in
your search results this time.
Careful! Your operators must be entered in capital letters as
shown above

The results for Exercise 2 shown above clearly outline how
Boolean searches can yield vastly different amounts of
information, using the same two key words, by simply varying
their relationship to each other.
Option #3 - Advanced Searching and Power Tools
Many search engines and all online services offer additional
search or ‘power’ tools, some of which are highly specialized in
their capabilities, to refine your query.
Some of the more common power tools and their capabilities
include:
1. Phrase Searching - In most search engines, enclosing a phrase
in quotation marks (“) instructs the retrieval software to look
for these words in this exact order, with no intervening word.’
Example: “teenage nutrition”
2. Field Searching - This search tool instructs the search engine
to only search this part of the document for the key word.
Example: Entering title(nutrition) in some search engines will
only return pages that have nutrition in the title.
3. Date Filter - Date filtering limits the search engine to records
within the desired date range. (Due to inconsistency in the
way that dates are interpreted, realize that date searching is
often of little to no value on the web.)
Search example: entering date from 01/01/09 to 12/31/09 in
some search engines will only return results from 2009.
Click on the Help or
Search Tip links in your
search engine or select
the Advanced Search
option to understand
which of these and
more powers tools are
available

4. Proximity Searching - Instructs retrieval software to look for
pages where key words appear in the same sentence.
Example: teenage same nutrition
This limitation instructs retrieval software to look for these
words within (x) words of each other and only in this order.
Example: teenage near5 nutrition
5. Wildcard - In some search engines this power tool uses the
asterisk to fill in the blanks between two words in a phrase or
string of words.
Example: Entering teenage * issues in * Illinois will return
pages with phrases or word strings that replace the asterisks
accordingly like teenage nutrition issues in Chicago Illinois.
6. Truncation - This power tool typically found in professional
online services uses the asterisk to look for any words that
begin with the truncated letters.
Example: Entering teen* will return pages with teen, teenage
and teenager.
7. Nested Logic - This complex Boolean logic instructs the search
engine to combine more than one of the power tools listed
above or others into the same key word search.
Language Filter - This instruction limits searches to records
written in the specified language.
8. URL, Site and Domain Searching - Limits the search engine
efforts to a specific URL, site or domain resulting in a complete
search of the selected location
9. File Type - This filter allows the researcher to identify the
types of file formats that should be searched
Example: .pdf, .ppt, .doc, .rtf and more.
10. Region - This instruction limits searches to records originating
in the specified region or country.
The screen capture on the following page illustrates some of
these advanced searching and power tools.
Get in the habit of
trying your searches
in both the basic and
advanced versions
and you will begin to
understand which
searches work well
with which search
tools

Advanced Searching and Power Tools Illustration
Boolean AND
1. Phrase
Boolean OR
Boolean NOT
7. Language
8. URL, Site &
Domain
3. Date
2. Field
9. File Type
10. Region

Exercise 3
Use Advanced Search power tools in the following scenario to
narrow down the search results again:
for teenagers again, but only in the titles of the materials
indexed.
Go to your search engine (www.google.com) and click on the
Advanced Search button next to the Key Word search field.
1. Enter teenage AND nutrition in the correct Boolean field.
2. Next, click the (+) to expand the ‘Date, usage rights…’
section of the form.
3. Click the drop down box in the ‘Where your keywords
show up field ‘to display options.
4. Select the ‘in the title of the page’ option and click on
Advanced Search to begin your first power tool search.
Write down how many items appear in your search results
this time.
Careful! Your operators must be entered in capital letters as
shown above

The results for Exercise 3 shown above are an example of how
important Power Tools can be to your research efforts. By
restricting the search engine to the title field you were
guaranteed to retrieve relevant information in the page and the
results were reduced by 99%.
Why Use Open Web Directories?
When researchers know exactly what they are searching for,
web directories can provide a quick review of the easily accessed
information within specific search categories.
Material in Open Web Directories are categorized or indexed into
topics by human editors. This is a plus to many researchers since it
means that the indexed material is always considered more
valuable and credible than many other search engines retrieval
software results.
MagPortal.com is a directory that specializes in finding online
magazine articles. The site primarily indexes articles from
magazine websites and a limited range of daily publications. Users
can browse articles by topic, use the full-text search engine, or
use similar articles links. Very brief article summaries are
displayed.
Search Categories
& Key Word
Search Field

TThe MagPortal search engine allows sorting by relevance, date
the article appeared online, topic, or publication. Searches can be
confined to a specific topic or publication. Articles remain in the
index indefinitely.
One of the major drawbacks for using Open Web Directories is
that they do not offer the search option Power Tools that are
available from more popular search engines.
How Credible Are Your Search Results ?
Look at the URL address of the website. The URL address starts
with http://. Addresses ending in .gov, .us and .(STATE
ABBREVIATION) are reliable.
All other endings will require more investigation to know if they
are credible or not:
1. URL addresses that contain tildes (~) usually mean that an
individual published the site. Individual publishers unaffiliated
with a credible corporation can have their own agendas. These
sites may not have the most credible information.
2. Check the publishing date. Obviously, Internet pages that have
been published more recently are more credible.
3. Figure out the site's purpose. Sites that are selling you
something or asking you to sign up for something may not be
presenting you with neutral, unbiased information.
4. Check out the contact information and resources. Credible
websites should list contact information and resources.
5. Decide if the article is describing facts or the author's
opinions. Statements that start with "I think" or "From my
experience" are not as reliable as those that begin with
"Experts recommend" or "Research proves."
6. Ask yourself whether or not the article has answered all of
your questions after you have finished reading it. If the article
still leaves you with questions, it may not be the most credible
source.

Putting Search Results to Good Use
What about Citations and Copyright Restrictions?
Citing web pages in your reports and presentations
Responsible digital citizenship requires that you identify all
sources information and owners of materials that you include in
your documents and presentations. This identification is
formatted in a manner known as a citation.
Citing any resource for research-based work requires you to
either:
1. Use the citation style that has been identified as acceptable to
your audience.
OR
2. Follow the citation style that has been requested by the
author or owner of the original material. You will often find
citation instructions listed at the end of a document or
through a link in the website. This is typical for online images
which will often be retrieved with a statement identifying the
acceptable manners of use and sometimes even the format
for the citation that should accompany the reproduction of
the image.
There are many acceptable citation styles. Identifying the most
appropriate one to use for your project should be researched just
like all of the other information that you have retrieved.
Determining if information you retrieved is copyrighted.
Regardless of the absence of a copyright mark, ©, even if the
authors name is not listed on the page, assume that all print,
image, and audio materials are intellectual property and therefore
protected under the appropriate intellectual property laws from
the time the material first entered the public sphere.

Representing copyrighted materials in your documents.
When using materials from the Internet, the minimum copyright
credit should include:
• Copyright symbol, ©
• Year the material was first published (2001)
• Name of the copyright owner (Bernard E. Powers, Jr, Ph.D.)
Additional Support: How Can You Learn More About Online Research?
Stanford’s Key to Information Literacy, (skil.stanford.edu), is a
tutorial that defines the full circle elements of a research project
including searching the web and evaluating the reliability of the
information that you retrieve.
Similarly, the 21st
Century Information Fluency Project,
(www.21cif.com), offers tools, tutorials, wizards, webcasts and
more to help you from the beginning through the completion of
your research project including the evaluation of your results.

Summary
At this point, you should have a general understanding of Online
Research Basics. Place a checkmark  next to each concept for
which you feel confident.
 Manage your research time wisely to locate information
online
 Describe the three “R’s” of search engines
 Structure your search for excellent results
 Determine the credibility of your search results
 Explain the correct use of citations and copyright restrictions

Assessment and Knowledge Check
Let’s see what you have learned! There are two assessments in
this chapter. They include:
1. Structuring Your Search for Excellent Results
2. Multiple Choice and True/False
Lesson One: Structuring Your Search for Excellent Results
Type of Searches Used / Results:
Question: Which search method do you prefer? Why?
Scenario: You are writing a report on poverty amongst
children in the U.S., particularly local to your area. Use the
different types of searches that have been covered to research
and collect data for your report. Detail below the searches
that you used and list some of your results.

Lesson 2 – Question and Answer
Instructions: In this lesson, circle the correct answer.
1. True/False: Managing your research time wisely means
developing a research plan/preparation AND revising your
search when your needs don’t get met.
2. Which one of the following is not an “R”, as it relates to search
engines?
a) Relevance Ranking
b) Review
c) Retrieval
d) None of the above
3. When structuring your search, which one of the following is
one of the three options?
a) Boolean Logic Search
b) Advanced Searching and Power Tools
c) Simplified Key Word Search
d) All of the above
4. True/False: URL addresses that contain tildes (~) mean that
an individual published the site, and that it may have the most
credible information.
(False: It may not have the most credible information.)
5. True/False: When citing web pages in your reports and
presentations, responsible digital citizenship requires that you
identify all sources of information and owners of materials
that you include.

6. The online information world is divided into five categories.
Which one of the following is not one of the five?
a) The Professional Online Services
b) The Deep Web
c) The Closed Web
d) The Social Web
7. True/False: Search Engines conduct a live, real-time search of
the web when you type your keywords into the search field.
(False: Search engines do not conduct a live, real-time
search.)
8. When performing a Boolean Logic search, which one of the
following is an operator that can be placed between keywords
to narrow the results?
a) AND
b) OR
c) NOT
d) All of the above
9. True/False: Materials in Open Web Directories are
categorized or indexed into topics by human editors.
10. When using materials from the Internet, the minimum
copyright credit should include which of the following?
a) Year the materials was first published
b) Copyright symbol ©
c) The appropriate citation style that has been requested by
the author or owner
d) (a) and (b)

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