Week
Three Assignment ~ Background Searching on the WWW
Please
post your work in your Research Journal/Blog
Since the
goal of background research is to get an idea about the scope of your topic and
to gather a vocabulary to use for search terms to use later in the library
catalog and databases that is what you will look for in your web searches this
week. Please document your experience/ answers to ALL of the prompts in the
following questions/directions. You will find the assignment will go smoothest
if you read through the entire UC Berkley site first, then print the
assignment, and have the Berkley site open as you work through the assignment.
First:
What is your research topic?
1. Select
a Search Engine and run a search for your topic. Tell me the search engine you
used and what noteworthy features appeal to you about this search engine.
·
Scan a
few webpages from your search and:
o
Make a
note of any new ideas or information you found.
o
List
words that might be used for future searches. Be sure to include at least one DISTINCTIVE
term, one BROAD term, one NARROW term and one RELATED term.
I used Google; the main noteworthy feature that
appealed to me is how it highlights what I typed in the search bar. It also had
links to images, YouTube videos, news, etc. It found almost 38,000,000 results
in less than half a second and listed Wikipedia as the first result which is an
encyclopedia. The US Berkeley site noted that this search engine has what is called
a PageRank which is a system that includes hundreds of factors, emphasizing
pages most heavily linked from other pages as well as that is has many additional
databases including book search, scholar (journal articles), blog search,
patents, images and more.
Word(s)
to use for future searches
Distinctive:
Adenovirus Vector
Broad:
Gene Therapy
Narrow: Single Gene mutation
Related:
Biology/Bioethics
2. Select
a meta-search engine from the tutorial and run the same search there.
·
What do
you notice that is different about the results? What is the same?
·
What is
your impression of this tool?
It found fewer results and did not even list all of
them. It displayed the top 168 of the almost 21,000,000 it retrieved. The
meta-search engine I used was Yippy.com and the main difference I've noticed on
the left hand side of the page. It was a box that had 4 different tabs. The
first tab was clouds which separated the results by categories such as cancer,
scientific, clinical, research, market, etc., followed by sources, sites, and time.
These 4 different tabs would allow me to narrow down my research to a specific
factor. For example if I wanted to find something recent, I would use the time
tab and go from there. If I wanted a non-profit organization or an educational
site, or anything else, I would use the sites tab and go from there. The main
thing that was the same as Google was how this meta-search engine (Yippy.com)
highlighted what I had typed in the search bar (Gene Therapy). It also had
other links to news, images, blogs, etc.
I really like this meta-search engine. I think it
will be helpful in helping me narrow down my results or even help me discover
things that I didn't think of when doing my research which I can also add to my
research paper. I will definitely use this source more now that I am aware of
its existence.
3. Do a
web search for a subject directory on the discipline your topic represents
using the directions in the tutorial for “How to Find Subject-Focused
Directories for a Specific Topic, Discipline, or Field”.
·
What is
the name of the directory you found? Do a search for your topic in the
directory.
·
Scan a
few webpages from your search and:
o
Make a
note of any new ideas or information you found.
o
List
words that might be used for future searches. Be sure to include at least one DISTINCTIVE
term, one BROAD term, one NARROW term and one RELATED term.
·
How did
searching the subject directory differ from your search engine/meta-search
engine searches?
The subject directory I used was Yahoo directory.
I never really used Yahoo for anything other than just
checking email. I was not aware of anything such as Yahoo Directory to be
honest. Before I did a search for my topic, this directory had different “databases”
that I could choose from to make my research easier such as different
categories like Arts and Humanities, Business, Health, Entertainment, News and
media, and much more. I clicked on the Health “database” because I believe that
my topic (Gene Therapy) would best fit this area. Once I clicked on this “database”,
I was offered with a lot more categories I could choose from for my research,
but I didn't choose any of them, I just typed “Gene Therapy” in the search bar and
was offered with almost 8,000,000 results. This directory just like the search
engine Google and the meta-search engine Yippy also highlighted my topic; it
also had different links to images, videos, blogs and more. This directory had
listed other topics for me to try which I thought would be helpful when doing
my research. This could help me find the invisible college. It also had links
to related searches I could try, it gave me an option to filter by time between
the present and the past, and on the right hand side of the page it had ads
that were related to the topic that was researched. The difference in this
directory with the search and meta-search engines I believe was how this had
categories for me to choose from before I had typed my topic in the search bar.
I think this way; it narrowed my topic down and would have made it easier for
me to find the information that I need.
Word(s)
to use for future searches
Distinctive: Adenovirus Vector
Broad: Gene Therapy
Narrow: Single Gene mutation
Related: Biology/Bioethics
4. Follow
the directions under the “Invisible or Deep Web” link to find a database/ deep
web information source on your topic. You will likely need to use a broad term
to get good results. Continue to broaden your terms until you find something
you might use. Please give me the URL and tell me your impression of this
process.
I clicked on the Find Articles link and it led me to
site that had many different databases such as articles by subject, general
articles, news, books, etc. I clicked on General Article Databases and it too
had a page that was full of databases. I then clicked on the Academic Search
Complete but it required a username and password to log in and I don’t have that
information. So, I tried Google Scholar instead. That I have used before and I
liked. I typed in my topic (Gene Therapy) because it is very broad as is. The following
is a link to the results that Google Scholar had provided me with when I
searched Gene Therapy. http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=Gene+therapy&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C48&as_sdtp=
What I like about Google Scholar is that it doesn't just
display articles from universities, it also has research papers that were
written by scientists in the form of a PDF file which allows me to view the
full text. There are a couple of problems with finding articles that belong to universities.
A main problem is that if you are not a student at that university, you can not
access the article without a login. Another problem is that a lot of the times,
you have to pay or subscribe in order to view the whole article. But here is an
free PDF article that I found on Gene Therapy. http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=Gene+therapy&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C48&as_sdtp
5. Evaluation-
You read some criteria last week on how to evaluate information in general with
some additional suggestions for websites. This week you read about evaluation
of websites in particular. Please respond to each of the points below in your
evaluation of a website of your choice.
Select One
website that relates to your topic and evaluate it according to the techniques
and questions in the tutorial.
I decided to go with the search engine (Google) and used the
search bar to type in my topic (Gene Therapy)
a. What did you learn from the URL? Think about
– personal page, domain, publisher
This is the URL of the website I am using. This is not a
personal page. It is an educational page that belongs to the University of
Utah. It is the main page to all the information needed to explain what Gene
Therapy is and what it’s used for and what not. It also has additional
resources in order to obtain more information about the topic.
b. Scan
the page for:
·
Information
about the sponsors/authors of the page. Is there an “about us” link?
·
Is there
a “date last updated”?
·
Are there
any author names, either individual or organizational?
·
What are
the author’s credentials?
·
Can you
tell if the page has been updated?
o
No main authors of this page. It seems that it is
run by the Genetic Science learning center of the University of Utah. However
it does have an about us link on the top of the page that includes the address
of the university, a phone number and a feedback email link.
o
No specific date other than the year 2013
o
No author name(s), it just concludes that all of
the information on the website is by the Genetic science learning center.
o
No author credentials
o
No I cannot tell if the page has been updated or
not unfortunately.
c. Does
the page have quality information?
·
Are
information sources documented with footnotes or links?
·
If
information is from another source is it complete, altered, or forged?
There are no main footnotes. However the page does seem to
have quality information. The website specifies that the information is supported
by a Science Education Partnership Award from the national center for research resources
which is a component of the National institutes of health.
d. Use
alex.com to see what other webpages link to this page. (the directions are in
the tutorial)
·
Are the
links to your page from reputable pages/institutions/authors?
·
Google
the author and see what others say about him/her.
Using the site alexa.com, it showed that the global rank for
this website is 8,881 which in comparison to how many other websites there are
in the World Wide Web and that is pretty good. Its U.S. ranking is 2,407. That
rank too is unbelievable to how many websites were made and are visited here in
the United States.
e. Does
it all add up?
·
What is
your impression of the page overall?
·
Why was
the page put on the web?
·
Is it
irony, satire, or parody?
·
Does it
seem as credible as information in books, journals, textbooks?
I really like this website that is provided by the University
of Utah. It seems like it is quality information considering the fact that it
is supported by a Science Education Partnership Award from the national center
for research resources which is a component of the National institutes of
health. That alone says a lot about the site. And again, it is the site to a
major university here in the country. It wouldn't have false information on
it. The site was put up to help educate
others about this topic of Gene Therapy. It includes all there is to know about
it as well as other related resources. I Do not believe it is an irony, satire,
or a parody. It is an educational source. And yes I do believe that it does
seem as a credible source. It has information that I had found in other
journals as well as books. This website also has a Cite this page link.
6.
Finally, what did you learn this week that you will use in the future when you
search the web?
I have actually learned a lot this week from doing this week’s
assignment. I have found out about other ways of looking for information about
a topic I want to do research on. I have learned that there was such a thing as
an invisible college. I didn't know about it but now that I do, it does make
sense to me. I now know what a meta-search engine is and how to use it as well
as how beneficial it would be to my research.
