IR2+Create+An+Internet+Research+Strategy



=**Internet Research 2: Creating an Internet Research Strategy**=


 * Aim:** How do we create an Internet research strategy?


 * Objectives:**


 * Students will learn to develop a search strategy
 * Students will learn how to evaluate results
 * Students will learn how to refine a search


 * Vocabulary:**


 * Search results
 * keywords

You need to plan out a search strategy before you tackle a search on the Internet. Otherwise, its possible you will get a bunch of useless results. Follow the following seven steps in creating an Internet research strategy.


 * **Define your topic and note initial keywords** Identify what concepts you are looking for. Write it down and circle the keywords in your sentence(s).


 * **Locate background information and identify additional keywords** Look first for information in a general reference source such as an encyclopedia. Read about your topic and identify keywords. Jot them down and note the correct spellings. These are words you can use to perform your search.


 * **Choose the proper search tool** **Search engines** and **metasearch engines** are appropriate search tools if you are looking for specific information. If you are looking for information that you cannot find in Google or Bing or Yahoo!, then you might try a **specialty search engine**. **Specialized search engines** are often used when looking for academic information for a school assignment and when you need scholarly articles. A **social media search engine** would be useful when you are looking for the opinions of the masses, or their comments or reviews.


 * **Translate your question into an effective search query** To translate your question into a **search query**, pull out the keywords from your sentence. Then perform a search on just those words.


 * **Perform your search** Enter your keywords into the search box of a **search engine** of your choosing.


 * **Evaluate your search results** You need to **examine the content** of the individual **search results** by identifying the author of the Web page and how current it is.


 * **Refine your search, if needed** If you did not find what you needed, try again by repeating the steps above. Try either fine-tuning your search or choose another search engine. If your **search results** are still not what you are looking for, then you might need to reevaluate your keywords. It is possible they were too specific or too general. Or you might have to go back to the drawing board and reread a general encyclopedia article and find additional keywords with which to search.


 * Class Activity 1:**

1. Go to @http://go-high.grolier.com/.


 * username:** novel764
 * password:** novel

2. Pick the same social issue you picked from the //SIRS// database the other day and perform a search in the Grolier Online Encyclopedia.

3. Read the article and pick out keywords.

4. Make a table on your wiki and list the keywords you extract from the encyclopedia article.

5. Now perform a search on your keywords in Google, or Bing, or Yahoo!

6. Perform the same search in a **social media search engine** such as Addictomatic, Social Mention , Topsy , or Social Searcher.

7. What are people saying about your topic?

8. Read the above seven steps for creating an Internet research strategy and identify what you did at each step. Make a table like the one below:


 * **Step in my Internet Research Strategy** || **The results of each step** ||
 * Define your topic and note initial keywords ||  ||
 * Locate background information and identify additional keywords ||  ||
 * Choose the proper search tool ||  ||
 * Translate your question into an effective search query ||  ||
 * Perform your search ||  ||
 * Evaluate your search results ||  ||
 * Refine your search, if needed ||  ||