Searching the Internet Effectively:

Preparing for your search

What Type of Internet Search? [Stacey&Stacey 2004]

• General Topic: No precise question, qualitative, to get context for information problem E.g. “information about Marae”. May be resolved to a direct information request, or a subject search.
• Direct Information: Precise question with concise answer (single page) E.g. "Where is the Te Herenga Waka Marae?"
• Subject search: extensive research to identify a range of sites about a topic, e.g. "How has the urban marae developed?"
• Derived information: information is a compound of many other pieces of information E.g. “What are the names and contact details of NZ university Marae?”
• Media resource search: For non-textual information E.g. “Locate an image of the Te Herenga Waka Marae”

The type of search may determine the tools that you use:

• General topic: look at a directory, or Wikipedia, to get basic background information.
• Direct information: go to a specific site, e.g. the website of a particular organisation.
• Subject search: use a range of sources, including directories, search engines, and subscription databases
• Derived information: visit several websites - possibly use a tool like Google Squared (currently experimental)

Preparing for a subject search

1.    Clarifying your query

2.    Identify parameters of query

• How much information is required- a few examples, or everything available?
• Do you know of relevant information (websites, articles, etc) already?
• What level of information is required - elementary, scholarly, technical...?
• Is any particular time period or geographic area required?

3.    Identify terminology and concepts

• the key concepts that you want to be present in a page, and
• the terms that represent those concepts (synonyms, singulars/plurals, British/US spellings, etc):

This process builds up a "wordbank" that can be used in your searches.

Think about a question that you would like to research on the Internet. What are the key concepts, and what terms represent them? Draw a concept diagram like the one above.

4.    Select appropriate tools

Search Tools