How to Find Information online
The internet has become a remarkable resource of information, web search has provided fast access to facts, opinion, news, commentary, all at our fingertips. A variety of tools are available to help you find what you need, some of these tools are as follows:
General Directories, are used when you have a general question, such as the Yahoo Directory and Open Directory, these sites are categorized for easy browsing.
Search Engines, when you want something on a very specific topic this is where you would go.
Specialized Directories, for special areas of study these sites provide expert information regarding the topic.
When assessing Quality of Content when doing searches on the internet one must ask them selves these questions:
From what organization does the content originate? Consider the source. Look at the URL the domain name will identify the owner by going to Network Solution's Whois Search. The Internet Assigned Numbers authority provides a list of Whois sites by country. Beware of look alike domain names.
Ask yourself some questions
What is the purpose of the site? Identifying the motivation will help in determining the purpose of the site.
What is the quality of the writing? The level of attention to detail will help readers access if the information gathered is Facts vs opinions.
What are the Documentation of sources sited? Does the site display the origins of the facts?
Want more on an overview of the factors to consider when evaluating the quality of information found on a website go to: www.virtualchase.com
Online Encyclopedia Research is Informative
Getting the most out of search engines
Googles Advanced Search. search features, Boolean Google automatically ANDs all your words, you can use a minus sign to NOT a term, and you can use one or more ORs. simple Boolean is done by use of the "with all the words, " "with at least one of the words, " and "without the words" boxes.
Title Searching, searches can be limited to words appearing in teh page title in one of two ways first on teh advanced search page you can choose in the title of the page from the pull down menu under Occurrences section of the page . Second on the home page you can use the prefixes intitle or allintitle, prefix specifies that a single word or phrase is included in the title or that all words after the colon be in the title.
URL, Site and Domain Searching, to limit retrieval to pages from a particular URL it can be done in a way parallel to title searching. You can do it either using menus on the advanced search page or using prefixes on the home page. On the advanced search page, enter URL or part of a URL in the search boxes, then choose in the URL of the page from Occurrences section.
Link Searching, to find pages that link to a particular site, perform the search on Google's Home page or Yahoo Home page by using the Link:prefix such as.................. link:sitenamedotcom it will then list all the websites attached to that URL.
Finding Information online is easy with the Right Tools
The following resources can be used to find groups of interest:
- Google Groups Search
- Google's Web Search
- Yahoo Groups
- Delphi Forums
- Ezboard
- Big Boards, A resource guide for locating large message boards and forums
Easiest way to find out if there is a forum for your niche topic, type in the topic in the search engine and add forum, message board or discussion group at the end of it. ( NFC Forum)
Online Tools
Encycleopedias - HighBeam Encyclopedia includes 57,000 frequently updated articles from the Columbia Encyclopedia, all articles are free.
Encyclopedia Britannica Online - online version provides brief articles for free, but vast content requires a subscription which will give you access to 120,000 articles
Wikipedia is an internet only encyclopedia with over 1 million articles in English.
Wiki Wiki a collaborative site by internet users that allows easy input and online editing by any user.
How Stuff Works - is an encyclopedia with articles on how things work content ranges from autos, science, health, entertainment, computers, electronics, home, money and people.
Dictionaries
yourdictionary.com - is a resource guide that provides links to more than 2,500 dictionaries and grammar for more than 300 languages
Merriam-Webster Online this is a full featured English dictionary with pronunciation with audio part of speech etymoloy and a thesaurus.
Diccionarios.com - General Spanish dictionary includes translations between Spanish and Catalan, English, French, German, Italian and Portuguese. Contains 95,0000 entries and provides audio for pronunciations
LEO Link Everything Online - contains more than 425,000 entries, it provides a quick english/German and German/English lookup, with audio pronunciations.
Resources allow navigation of the Information Highway
Reference Tools and Almanacs
Answers.com , find on one page dictionary definitions, encyclopedia articles, maps, local time, currency converter, statistics along with glossaries, study guides and much more.
InfoPlease.com - has atlas, biographies, encyclopedia, dictionary, chronologies, statistics, calendars, country profiles, World News, U.S. History, Government, Biography, Sports, Arts, Business, Culture, Health, Science, Homework Center.
A9.com Here you can search a number of sources at one time , you can select many sources as you check a list that includes: Windows Live, Books, IceRocket Blog Search, People, News, wikipedia, Yellow pages, References, Movies, and a list of more than 300 sources.
Finding information is a skill that can be learned and in time it will be something that takes less and less time to do, inorder to find the information you need.