Smart web searching and evaluating

This website has been created to help you make the most of your valuable research time by providing tips on how to search the web effectively, and how to evaluate what you find.

Popular Search Engines

There are dozens of available search engines (or search tools). Library staff recommend these search engines for their accuracy and reliability. If available, use the Advanced Search option to limit where your words appear on a web page and to structure your search in an effective way.

	http://www.google.com.au/	Advanced Search
	http://search.msn.com/default.aspx	Advanced Search
	http://www.ask.com/	Advanced Search
	http://www.metacrawler.com	Searches Google • Yahoo • Ask Jeeves • About • LookSmart • Overture • FindWhat

Search Tips

You can find specific help from the individual search engine homepages. Look for help files, information pages, FAQs and guides to searching.

Try to keep your search statements simple.
Carefully choose your keywords, and remember to think about alternate terms that could be used e.g. "greenhouse effect" or "global warming".
If you need to search on a single term, make the term as specific as possible.
A single term limited to the TITLE of a page, rather than ANYWHERE ON A PAGE, is more likely to result in relevant material.
Enclose "exact phrases" in quotation marks.
Leave out common words, such as the, and, in and at
Many search tools look for word variations, including single and plural terms e.g. australia will match to australian, australia's, australians etc.
Use domains to limit your search to material on specific website, e.g. .gov.au for Australian government sites
Don't worry about using capital letters.

Subject Gateways

Subject gateways list and organise resources into categories and sub-categories, and are recommended for the quality of their information. Experts in particular fields evaluate and select sites to create a compilation of scholarly resources in a discipline.

	http://www.intute.ac.uk/socialsciences/
The Social Sciences Information Gateway (SOSIG) links to organizations and research agencies, electronic journals, mailing lists, reports and documents in a broad range of subjects.
	http://www.hw.ac.uk/libwww/irn/pinakes/pinakes.html
PINAKES provides a comprehensive list of subject gateways.
	http://www.vlib.org.uk/
The World Wide Web Virtual Library provides key links to a variety of quality internet resources.

Evaluating What You Find

How do you know that information you find is reliable and accurate? It’s always important to consider the quality of the information you use. It is especially important to critically evaluate web resources, as there is no quality control on the Internet. No single person or organization has the task of verifying the authenticity and accuracy of sites. As a researcher, the responsibility for assessing the merit of information lies with you.

Some questions to ask yourself when evaluating Internet sites are

Author	Can you easily identify the author of the Web page or site? Does the author give their affiliations, credentials or reason for publishing the information?
Type of Information	Look at the URL or address. Where did the document originate? Is the information scholarly, governmental, from a private business or association, or an advertisement? Do other reputable Internet sites point to this one?
Purpose	Is the author making an argument for personal gain, offering an opinion, giving a factual report or relaying a personal observation? For whom is the site intended?
Sources	Is the information from original research, experiments, observation, interviews, books or documents? Are references provided?
Timeliness	When was the material published? Has the content been updated recently?

If you can't find the answer to these questions, that may be reason enough not to use a particular website or resource.

If you do use a website for an assignment, make sure you record the address or URL of the site and the date upon which you visited it. This information is essential to accurately cite the resource in a bibliography. Up-to-date information about citing websites is available from Referencing Styles website.

Useful Links

Smart Searcher Internet Tutorial
http://www.deakin.edu.au/library/tutorials/smartsearcher/
Critically Analyzing information Sources, Cornell University Library
Best Search Tools Chart
Search Engine Watch

Last updated 20th January, 2005.