Searching the Internet

I can't name one person that doesn't use a major search engine on a daily basis (especially Google). However, before listening to Chris Nolan I had no idea there were sort of "tricks" to using these popular search engines for research. These tricks can be as easy as putting quotations around a phrase so that the search engine finds the phrase together instead of as separate words. 

A problem with Google and other popular search engines such as Yahoo, is that most people do not look at more than about the first thirty results. However, the first results are more than likely not scholarly sources because they appear based upon website popularity- not content. 

One way to decide whether a source is credible is to look at the web address. A ".com" or ".org" are not necessarily credible, because they're businesses or organizations that are trying to sell you a certain idea. ".edu" websites are credible because it is a higher education website. A student doing research can limit his or her search to only ".edu" sites by doing an advanced search. (An advanced search can also limit your search in many other ways.) 

The thing that surprised me the most in Chris Nolan's presentation was the technology Google has. Especially the technology to eliminate advertisers from informational sites. The reason Google is so popular is because of their technology. Their technology enables them to produce results that people tend to like more than other search engines' results. 

I learned many things from Chris Nolan's presentation, which surprise me in itself because I use Google and other search engines daily. I learned about directories (places where people look at websites that they think are useful and stick them into different categories). I also learned lots of useful trick that you can view here. 

Erin Camp

ecamp@trinity.edu