06 Contextualized online search and research skills

What type of research deals with Quantitative Data?

• Hard Research

• Soft Research

• Hybrid Research

• None of the choices

Answer explanation

Hard research involves searching the most credible sites such as scholary journals and papers which are properly documented.

Sample Topics:

● Philippines should stop importing rice from other countries.

● China has wrong claims over Philippine territory.

● Foreign investments fuel increase in employment by 30%.

What type of research deals with Qualitative Data?

• Hard Research

• Soft Research

• Hybrid Research

• None of the choices

Answer explanation

Soft research involves searching for opinions rather than well documented facts, such as you might find on less authoritative sites such as about.com and blogs.

Sample Topics:

● Android OS is better than IOS.

● Dogs, not cats, are man's best friends.

● Pink and yellow colors generate happiness to the wearer.

Which of the following websites are proven to be authorities of reliable information sources?

• Commercial Site

• News site

• Blogs

• Scholarly site

• forums

Answer explanation

News site: More and more people get their news online instead of (or in addition to) newspapers and TV. News websites are usually updated frequently, and older articles may be kept on the site for years. If you find an article through a Google search, make sure to check the date.

School: Many schools have their own websites. In addition to having general information about the school, the website will usually have pages that are written by teachers to supplement their lesson plans. While these pages often contain useful information, be aware that the website may also contain pages created by students, which may be less reliable.

Scholarly site: For some subjects, you may want to search for scholarly works (such as dissertations or articles for academic journals). To find these types of works, you can do a search at Google Scholar.

Database: This is a collection of information, often from different sources. One example is the Internet Movie Database, which is useful if you want to see all the movies a certain actor has appeared in.

True or false. Wikipedia IS a RELIABLE source of information.

• True

• False

Answer explanation

Wiki: This is a site that lets users add or modify content. The most famous example is Wikipedia, which is an online encyclopedia. The quality of articles in a wiki can vary widely, but well-written ones always provide links to the original sources where readers can verify the information.

Although Wikipedia is a good place to start your research, it is not a credible source that you should use to cite from. Wikipedia allows multiple users to edit, and it is not safe to assume that the facts presented there have been checked before publishing them. Wikipedia's policy does say that references should be used whenever possible, but the quality of these references is questionable, because people who are not experts in a field can update a page anytime to reflect whatever information they feel to be true and even back it up with heavily biased sources.

Wikipedia is not the only user-created encyclopedia. Wiki sites, too, are not credible sources. They come on a variety of topics, so pretty much anything with the word wiki appearing in the title or link should be avoided.

That said, Wikipedia entries are generally in the forefront of any web research and can be great sources to get preliminary information on a topic and find reliable sources through their notes, references, external links and further reading sections. Here's how you can use Wikipedia for your research:

Which of the following is NOT a criterion of a RESEARCH-FRIENDLY WEB BROWSER?

• Multiple tabs

• Graphics

• Bookmarks & favorites

• Search history

Answer explanation

Multiple tabs – allow switching from one tab to another

Bookmarks & Favorites - allows you to save the links of preferred web sites

Search History – allow you to see the list of previously visited sites in case you still need a page you have closed

Easy Navigation – allows you to use the features of the web browser easily even if it is your first time to use it; the browser must be “user-friendly”

What do you call the small programs that add new features to your browser and personalize your browsing experience?

Answer explanation

Google Chrome

Synch feature : You can see and update your synced info on all your devices, such as bookmarks, history, passwords and other settings.

Chrome Extensions : Small programs that add new features to your browser and personalize your browsing experience.

Mozilla Firefox

Add-ons : They add features to Firefox to make browsing faster, safer, or just plain fun.

True or false. Keywords that are more common and that include modifiers refine your search results. Thus, it optimizes your Internet search.

• True

• False

Answer explanation

Quotation Marks ( " )

Using quotation marks will help to find specific phrases involving more than one word. For example: "Martin Luther King"

Addition Sign ( + )

Adding a + sign before a word means that it MUST be included in each site listed. For example: + Florida + taxes

Subtraction Sign ( - )

Adding a - sign before a word means that it will NOT appear in the sites listed. For example: + Washington -DC

Asterisks ( * )

Asterisks can be used for wild-cards in some search engines. For example: Mexic* will look for Mexico, Mexican, Mexicali, etc.

https://www.webnots.com/how-to-use-shortcuts-and-symbols-in-google-search/

For example “free ebooks -site:ebay.com” searches for the free ebook sites excluding ebay.com.

True or false. In doing online research, a metasearch engine such as Sputtr is better than using a search engine such as Google.

• True

• False

Answer explanation

A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a line of results, often referred to as search engine results pages.

Google

YouTube

Amazon

Facebook

Microsoft Bing

Baidu

Yandex

A metasearch engine (or aggregator) is a search tool that uses another search engine's data to produce its own results from the Internet.

Examples : http://www.sputtr.com/, https://www.dogpile.com/

By sending multiple queries to several other search engines this extends the search coverage of the topic and allows more information to be found.

Do not just rely on Google. You may want to employ metasearch engines.

What is the purpose of BOOKMARKING sites?

• to save a web site's URL address for future reference

• a good solution for storing and organizing links

• used to save a web site's URL address for future reference.

• a saved shortcut that directs your browser to a specific webpage.

Answer explanation

“Collect then select”

Collect websites that contain possible good contents related to your research then bookmark or add them as “favorites” so that later on you can visit them again.

What is the purpose of FILTERING and VALIDATING CONTENTS?

• screening and exclusion of access to web pages that are undesirable

• helps us deal with the vast amount of information available to us

Answer explanation

Gather information that must be up-to-date.

This is the slowest step of all: vetting and filtering which content is legitimate, and which is drivelous trash. If you are doing hard research, this is also the most important step of all, because your resources MUST withstand close examination later.

Currency of the site refers to: 1) how current the information presented is, and 2) how often

the site is updated or maintained. It is important to know when a site was created, when it was

last updated, and if all of the links are current. Evaluating a web site for currency involves

finding the date information was:

first written

placed on the web

last revised

Reliability: Is the author affiliated with a known, respectable institution?

References: do statistics and other factual information receive proper references as to

their origin?

Does the reading you have already done on the subject make the information seem

accurate?

Is the information comparable to other sites on the same topic?

Does the text follow basic rules of grammar, spelling and composition?

Is a bibliography or reference list included?