Use Search Strategies to Feed Writing Strategies

     
These activities show how to add important information to ongoing compositions, whether for the web, slideshows, newsletters or some other type of composition. This activity presumes that you have completed the Word Processing Tutorial in the chapter, and the tutorial on outlining. This activity integrates your knowledge of word processing with new information about different types of web research and your own web page development. Here the outline processor within the word processor is used as a bridge or stepping stone to web publishing. The word processing document will hold and help organize information that will later be placed in web pages.

A word processing document will serve as a container to hold and organize the facts and ideas that you capture. The outline feature will enable the further organization and sequence of this information and the insertion of your own ideas. This exercise is meant to serve as a short or quick model for any thinking and writing activity. Though not covered in this exercise, note that many other multimedia elements can also be captured from the Internet and inserted in an outline. This includes images, video, and audio resources.
 

Search Strategy Concepts

Using web search engines to find web pages related to your topic should be a part of any problem solving activity. However, think strategically when you do research, especially web based research. There are many different kinds of web search systems, some better for different purposes than others. So, prioritize your web page search engines. Always begin with the search system whose method of organization delivers the greatest amount of human intelligence.  How? The pyramid shaped chart above provides a first understanding of some of the web search systems.

Think of the hundreds of web search systems in a pyramid, prioritized by the amount of human intelligence that goes into finding, organizing and composing their collection of information. In this information intelligence pyramid, quality is at the top and quantity is at the bottom. Each level fills an important role. 

At the top are refereed search systems which use experts in their fields to write and maintain the information in their databases. Though they often contain less information overall, it is generally of the highest quality.

In the middle are the catalog search systems which use human catalog specialists to put web sites in categories, much like library catalogers use the Library of Congress decimal system to categorize books. Much like finding one interesting book on the library shelf leads you to discover other similar books next to it, finding a web site at cataloging search site like Yahoo enables one to find a collection of other similar sites on that topic.

At the bottom of the pyramid are robot search systems which use computer programs to carry out this work.  These databases often contain the most information and return the longest lists of web pages related to your search topic, but finding current, accurate and unbiased information is more difficult.

Later chapters will provide many more options at each level of these levels. This chapter provides a simple introduction to the information pyramid concept with just one example of each level as noted in the graphic above. 

Hands-On Activity One - Find Relevant Web Sites

  • Keep this web page open so that Netscape (or some web browser) is available. 
  • Open a blank word processing file in Microsoft Word or Clarisworks/Appleworks. It does not matter if you do this assignment on Mac, Windows or Linux operating systems.
  • Arrange these two windows in a tile or cascading fashion so that you can easily jump from one window to the next. When clicking the three search sites below, the page is designed to force a new page to open for the site that is clicked. Reposition this page so that is works within your cascading or tiled window arrangement. When finished finding and copying data, close its window and return to this page to select the next site.
  • Given your project (e.g., adding to your unit of study or unit plan), find relevant information, and give it further organization as it accumulates using the outlining features. That is, use the headings in your unit plan to guide the placement of this information. Also use these search tools for other work on other projects.

    •  

    1. Encyclopedia Britannica via Hunter Library Britannica can provide an expert's list of valuable web sites. (This is preferred version of Britannica to use ; the subscription for this full-featured version is paid for by the university but you will have to follow the directions (link on library home page) on how to set the Preferences in your Explorer and/or Netscape browser to indicate that you are a WCU student. Then you will need you University name and ID# on your student ID card. If questions, call Hunter Library's reference desk at 227-7274.) Be careful with what you search for and copy as you are after the addresses of web sites, not articles in the encyclopedia!

    See these two screen movie demonstrations of searching Britannica to find recommended web sites and to copy and paste their web addresses into a Word outline. Either stop and start the movies after different mouse clicks to allow you to do the same activities on your computer, or watch it all then try.

    • Encyclopedia Britannica public  This is the public version. It is free but provides just snippets of information, not the full articles which requires paying a subscription fee. This version also includes numerous advertisements in each web page. This is not the preferred version to use.
2. Google Directory. Google provides category options for web sites selected by a national group of volunteers.

For example, from the opening page of the directory one can follow the categories ever download until reaching just the one needed. A second option is too search and note the categories under which search items appear. Using it effectively requires a careful study of the search result format. Here is an example of an item that appeared after searching for "history". Note that here the word category is in boldface black but in the actual Google page the word will be grey in color. The hierarchy structure follows the word category.

This Day in History 1883: Brooklyn Bridge opens

Category: Reference > Almanacs > History
Includes general daily historical information plus special entries for Wall
Street, the Civil War, technology, and automotive history.
www.history.com/tdih.do - May 24, 2007 - Cached - Similar pages

Here the category hierarchy can be used to reach other history items by clicking on this: Reference > Almanacs > History Once on this History page, the higher or lower levels of the hierarchy can be clicked and explored. This screens out many minor less valuable sites getting the searcher quickly to a set of items that volunteer intelligence deemed useful.

3. Hotbot. Hotbot provides a prioritized list of web pages.

See this Hotbot search screen movie (1 min. 1 seconds, 682 kb). It shows a Hotbot list of web pages ranked in order of their relevance as determined by software formulas. A web address is then copied and pasted into the developing outline. To further reduce file size and download time, a small display area is used for this movie.

 

When useful information is found in these searches, use the copy command to copy information including the web address and topic of the site from the web page and use the paste command to paste it into the word processing file. 

The word processing file should use outline headers to indicate what information came from which search engine. You need to find a minimum of one useful web site from each source of the three types of web sites given.

If you cannot find one good web site from each of the three search engines, please print out the search terms that you used and bring the print-out to me. I will assist you further in coming up with additional search terms for the theme of your unit plan. The reference desk at Hunter Library is also especially skilled in guiding search strategy development. Do not hesitate to ask there for their advice.

Hands-On Activity Two - Finding Relevant Experts

In the first exercise, you were looking for and copying information about relevant web sites. In this second exercise, look (search) for information that would allow you to interact with an individual expert and communities of experts. The term expert generally refers to an individual but could also refer to an institution or organization with specialized interests. This activity includes finding a relevant expert's email address, and the electronic name of a relevant newsgroup and a relevant LISTSERV. A minimum of one each is required for this activity. At some point in the future when teaching your unit plan, you may wish to trade email with one or experts.

Though local experts can stop by the school for a class visit, or take a question from a teacher by phone, computer networks extend your reach dramatically. Computer networks allow any expert any where on the globe to trade information with you online at no expense at all. Though school budgets may not allow long distance phone calls with distant experts, there is no long distance expense involved in inviting one to electronic chats with you and your students during class time or outside of class.

  • Create two new headers in your word processing outline using the outline commands: Experts and Email Conferencing and under this heading create two subheadings, Listservs and Newsgroups.
  • When useful information is found in these searches, use the copy command to copy information including the electronic contact information from the web page and use the paste command to paste it into the appropriate heading in the word processing file.

Finding and Qualifying Experts

There are many ways to find the email addresses of experts. Many you may already know because of your interest in a topic or from your reading of local and regional newspapers. Others will not be well known to you or known at all and you will need to carry out research to find them. Once found, qualifying them means reading enough about them to validate that they are the experts they claim to be. It is not necessary to try all four approaches below. Any one of the four is sufficient to take care of this task:
 
    • 1. Search general web sites. While browsing the web pages of the first activity, email addresses could appear which  belong the experts who created those web pages.
    • 3. Search corporate/business directories. Other links can be found from CROP's People Direct link, such as:
      • You might have found the name of an expert when you read a book or article related to your Unit Plan theme. Use CROP's White Pages links to try to find a name that you already know.
      • You might use CROP's Yellow Pages section to try find an organization, business or corporation that could help answer questions you may encounter in your unit. Find a yellow page search system that will let you hunt by category or keyword.
    • 4. Search newsgroups. You might skim some of the email of an electronic newgroup conference while at the google.com's database of groups (newsgroups) and retrieve a name and contact information from there. Newsgroups are sometimes called electronic bulletin boards. That is, not only will this database help you find the name of a newsgroup, but it will take you to the current email for that group as well as provide a variety of different ways to search of the email collection of a newsgroup.
You need a minimum of one email address for an expert. The contact information might also be a postal mail address or a telephone number or all of these.

Again, this assignment does not require that you contact this expert at this time.

    Finding Email Conferences

    The assigned activity is to find the electronic address of two forms of email conferencing and learn more about them in general. Suggestions for how to do this are provided below. However, what if you would like to create your own LISTSERV (e.g., mailing list) or newsgroup? What if you would like to have this email conference stay private, closed to just your students or whomever you would like to join? Google.com and other companies provide this service for free or cost. In the Fall of 2004 Google has created one of the easiest systems for creating your own public or private email conferences. Many other examples of software systems to manage your own mailing lists (Listservs) or newsgroups are readily available.

     LISTSERV (e.g., Mailing List Server)

What is a listserv? A listserv is an automated mailing list server which enables users to join or remove themselves from mailing lists, and make use of other services, by sending email messages. A message sent to the list can automatically be sent to everyone on the list. A listserv is one type of a system for sharing email among a group of people that are interested in discussing a topic or concept. Some email conferences are private and cannot be joined except by invitation. Many are public. By sending email to a public registration program for the list, the program places your name on the "list". From then on, the listserv program sends any email sent to the list directly to your given email address. If your name is not on the list, there is no public place to go to read the current email that is being traded. There are tens of thousands of these listservs that can be searched for relevant topics. When thinking of listservs, imagine a postal service that delivers just to the mailboxes of a group of people.

    Two ways to learn more about listservs are provided: web page info and screen movie demonstrations of the process.
     

      • More web page info on LISTSERVs
      • Videoclip screen movie demonstrations.
        • If more detail is needed to complete this activity, study the videoclip #12 below.
  • You need a minimum of one listserv address. 
    • A listserv address always includes an @ symbol. Such as health-list@list.brazil.edu.
     

    Once one is found, copy the name/address of the group into your word processing notes file. Again, this assignment does not require that you join this listserv or read its email discussions at this time.

    Find a newsgroup

What is a newsgroup? A newsgroup is also a system for sharing email among a group of people that are interested in discussing a topic or concept. They also might be public or private groups. Sometimes these are called bulletin boards or simply groups. There is one major difference between newsgroups and listservs. In the newsgroup system, the email is not sent to your email account. Instead it is sent to a central server which stores the email, requiring you to go to this storage site to read and respond. There are hundreds of thousands of databases of these newsgroups that can be searched for relevant topics. When thinking of newsgroups, think of a library where you must make a trip in order to read what is stored there. Only in this case, the trip becomes visits to different web sites that store newsgroups.

Two ways to learn more about listservs are provided: web page info and screen movie demonstrations of the search process.

Combined Part 1 and 2. See this Newsgroup search screen movie (2 min. 56 seconds, 1.4 mb). It shows different ways to search and read the newsgroups in Google's Groups collection. The newsgroup name or title is then copied and pasted into the developing outline under the newsgroup heading. To further reduce file size and download time, a small display area is used for this movie.

Part 1. See this Newsgroup search screen movie (1 min. 26 seconds, 1 mb). This clip is identical in content but only shows half of the combined clip above. It's pixel size is much larger for easier viewing. It shows one way to search Google's Groups collection.

Part 2. See this Newsgroup search screen movie (1 min. 28 seconds, 1 mb). This clip is identical in content and shows the second half of the combined clip. It's pixel size almost triple the size of the combined parts clip for easier viewing. The newsgroup name or title is copied and pasted into the developing outline under the newsgroup heading. It next shows a second way to search for newsgroups in Google's Groups collection.

You need to find a minimum of one newsgroup name or title. A newsgroup name contains only dots and might look something like these:

  • k12.ed.math
  • k12.chat.teacher
  • humanities.philosophy.objectivism
  • sci.geo.earthquake

Their addresses never contain an @ symbol. Again, this assignment does not require that you join this newsgroup or read its email discussions at this time.

As you carry out this word processing activity, continually save this word processing file as Notes (though other file names will work just fine). Some future work and projects will only require collecting information in a word processing documents. This assignment requires you to take this process one step further.

Move the Best Research Data from the Outline to your Project - The Unit Plan

    Finally, close unnecessary web browser windows and open the unitplan.html file on your diskette. Copy information this most recent collected information from the word processing file you have built to the appropriate places in section VII. of your unit plan for expert, listserv and newsgroup.

Closure

Through this exercise at least six new pieces of information have been added to your unit plan in section VII. Three web sites, one or more from each type of web search system, and three sources of contact. This assignment required practice with your outlining skills and practice with a variety of tools for doing research online in finding people who can assist with future problem solving on your topic.
Chapter Parent Frame  |   Updated September 22, 2005  |    Page author: Houghton