Kate's TEMPLATE: Websites

Advantages of using the Internet:

• There is so much information freely available on the Internet.
  
• Publication can be immediate, so the information can be very up-to-date.
• Anyone with Internet access can publish, so you will find opinions and information that would otherwise not have an outlet, or be found.
  
• You can access information whenever you are connected to the Internet.
  
• An increasing number of quality resources are publishing information under Creative Commons Licences, so the information can be easily viewed and used (within the restrictions of the licence).
  

Disadvantages of using the Internet:

• There is so much information available, that it can be overwhelming and difficult to find what you need.
  
• Anyone with an Internet access can publish, so it can be difficult to evaluate what you find for accuaracy and validity.
• Because information can easily be illegally copied, it can be difficult to determine if you are looking at original work, or material plagiarised from another site.
  

The main issue with the Internet, is that you have so much information within your reach, that it can be difficult to find the information you need. The solution is to go into your search with a clear idea of the what you need to find out about.  In this case you have your chosen theory and the media you have chosen to apply it to, e.g. semiotics and Andy Warhol.

If you're unsure of what the theory means, you can use Google as a dictionary, e.g. search for semiotics definition. Click on More info >> for web definitions of semiotics and see if these help you to understand the term.

This can also be a great way to find new keywords to use within your search - for example, this is where I found that semiotics could potentially be substituted by semantics, syntactics or pragmatics depending on which field you are interested in.

particular song, image (in this case Two Hundred Campbell's Soup Cans), poem, examples of how the theory has been applied by others.

Remember: It's usually best to keep to keywords, rather than typing in your assignment question.

Tips for searching:

• Use Advanced Search to set out your search - this can help you limit your search to only certain sites, e.g. .edu or .ac for pages from academic sites
• Use quotation marks around words you want to appear as you've typed them e.g. "Queens of the Stone Age"
• Be as precise with your keywords as possible - that is, know what you are looking for
• Keep your eyes open for other keywords that you could use in your search

Wikipedia often appears at the top of your search results. This is because of the way Google ranks its search results - it looks for pages which have a lot of links going to and from it (amongst other things). So in some respects, it's a bit of a popularity contest.

Wikipedia is edited by a group of volunteers, this can mean that anyone could be an editor (read about Shane Fitzgerald's experiment - The readers' editor on ... web hoaxes and the pitfalls of quick journalism). So someone who is a world expert could write the entry, or someone in your class with a strong personal opinion. Wikipedia can be a great starting point for your research, but should never be used in your reference list. Instead look for the references and external links to take your research further.

While Google aims to search everything it can, Google Scholar focuses on the scholarly literature available on the Internet.  This includes, articles, theses, books, abstracts, U.S. court opinions, and patents, found on the websites of academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and more. 

By scholarly literature, Google means publications that are based on the results of research or studies.  However, as the the checks on the "scholarly" work, is done automatically (not a real person), you still need to be careful and double-check that what you find is in fact scholarly.

Try it!

• What differences do you see in the list of results? 
• Which version of Google would you use for this assignment, and why?

Which version of Google should I use?

Knowing which version of Google to use depends on what information you need to find.  For most people starting out with a research question, Google is a good place to start to get an idea of what's been published on your topic.

As you get a clearer idea of the topic, you may see a gap in the information that needs support from the research, so you may want to switch over to Google Scholar to focus your search on the more scholarly literature.

Setting up Google Scholar

In order to access the material subscribed to by Wintec, you'll need to set-up your Google Scholar preferences.  See the Google Scholar guide to see how to do this.