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Investigative Research on the Net 
Day One Platform

 

Pre-course Exercise

What's Online?

The Pitfalls of Internet Research

Anyone can Publish Anything

Addresses and domain Names

 

Out of Date Sites

What's in a name?

Amateur Publishing - the telltale signs

Agenda?

Spoof

Hacked

Dead Link or Changed Content

Breach of Security

Exercise: evaluate the following sites for professionalism, accreditation, freshness and bias

Tips & Tricks

  • Keep cuttings next to your PC & highlight good keywords

  • Keep Word open and paste keywords, notes & images as you go

  • Corroborate information found with a new search

  • Check copyright and libel angles

  • Save the site and its images incase of legal problems

  • Take screen grabs and paste into Word

  • Check older versions of a site in Archive.org

  • Open a folder in favourites each programmes research

  • Shift-click on a link to open it in a new window

  • More tricks

Search Theory

  • Subject or Keyword?

  • Search Engine Comparison

Exercise: Decide whether the following research would be best conducted using a subject guide or a keyword search engine

  • Newcastle education & social resources

  • Sites about football stadiums

  • A site with country and western dance steps

  • Did Elvis Presley ever meet Richard Nixon?

Searching by Subject

Exercise: Subject Research

  • Find sites to support a programme about GM food

  • Find sites about Turkish social issues

  • Find sites Protecting Chimpanzees

  • Find the Chinese Government section of Google Directory

Developing a strategy before you go online

Keyword Searching

  • lateral thinking

  • search phrasing

  • keyword selection

Exercise: keyword Search

  • The lyrics to the song "White Christmas"

  • The name of Edward Heath's boat

  • In which years have Arsenal won football trophies?
    (ask a footie fan for a good keyword!!!)

  • What can you find out about Tim Clayden? 

Hidden Google!

Advanced filters

  • search by title

  • search by url

  • search by association

Exercise: advanced Search

  • An expert in earthquakes from a UK University
    (consult the group to get a good keyword)

  • Israeli Pacifists

  • A CIA webpage mentioning Thatcher & Iraq

 

Useful Research Tools

Searching for Stats (xls & csv files)

Example: Met. Police

Example: Stats Office

Example: Google search – HIV in the UK

Example: Keyword search

Finding stories on specialist sites

Alternative News

Hobby / campaign / interest sites

Industry news

Links and Bookmarklets

A look at communities and domain ownership

Whois

Course Evaluation Form

 

 

 

 


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