The internet and other on-line sources provide a wealth of information for you. However, unless you approach on-line research properly, you will quickly be overwhelmed or misled.
How many of you, when you're looking something up on the internet, simply type the question you're looking to answer in the first search engine window you find and push the "enter" key? When you do that, you could see zero "hits" or millions of hits. You need to do a few things before you type that question in the search engine's window.
We will practice this in class, but in a nutshell, the first thing you need to do is determine exactly what you are looking for. No, you don't need to know the answer yet--that's what you're trying to discover. But, you do need to know what sort of answer you are seeking. Let's use the example of finding an image of the flag of the Territory of Guam. Simply typing the words flag of guam in the search window results in something over 1,400,000 hits. Let's narrow that search down by searching for the string (the definition of string is found in the class glossary: (Applied Tech) flag of guam. To do this, we enclose the phrase to search for in quotation marks: "flag of guam". With that, the results are down to about 630. Let's narrow that search further. We want an image of the flag of Guam. Search engines allow you to use the boolian operators '+' (to require) '-' (to restrict) and '|' (or) on your search phrases and words. You can also use the boolian words AND OR NOT. So, let's search for +image +"flag of guam". Now, we're down to 200 or so result hits.
In class we will practice narrowing searches on the web. Our next page deals with how to tell what pages may or may not have accurate information.