Information+Literacy

toc Please post one NEW item in sections 1 & 2 before Wednesday 10/13

Section 1: Tips for Searching Effectively
MJ- add a subtract sign (-) for the words such as youtube and amazon.com that you don't want to include in your search Chris - filter the extension of your results by using "+ edu" or site:org, or going to the advanced search section of the engine. Bubba - When searching, do it in the following order: Broad term, related term, narrow term. Also, make sure the words are contextually appropriate and keep the order of the words in mind. For example, in the 1920s, there were no movies; there were films. So search for "1920s films" instead of "1920s movies". Howard- Use the asterisk to search for an answer to a question more efficiently than searching the question directly. Shao-Yan - List the keywords in your search in order of importance. For example, instead of "List of Chaucer's works" write "Chaucer's works list" instead, so the search engine searches for "Chaucer's works" instead of "list" first. William- Explore various types of search engines; find the specialized search engine that is most suitable for the subject matter of your search. For example, if you are simply searching for statistics of a certain subject, you can utilize "www.wolframalpha.com", which is a search engine designated for statistical results. Minsoo - Use appropriate terms for what you search. Amy - Use command or control + F to find key words in big chunks of text. Nafisah - use 'Google advanced search' to make your search more specific. You can find pages that only have the words that you want, have the exact phrase that you want, or one or more of specific words that you want. You can request pages to not contain words that you don't want (example: amazon, youtube), and even search within a site or domain. If you press the blue '+' sign at the bottom, you can refine your search further to dates, regions, and where exactly your keywords show up on the selected websites. Chris - Surround exact phrases that you wish to search for with quotation marks, for example: "Four score and seven years ago" instead of just: four score and seven years ago. You can also filter out words or websites that you do not wish to come up in your search results by simply putting a hyphen in front of the terms, for example: "Four score and seven years ago" -wikipedia -answers.com Justin- Use other search engines. I used dogpile.com because it integrates bing, ask, google, and yahoo search engines. In addition, i used site:.edu to find only university websites Emily- Don't use truncation within words. When search for different endings and synonyms separately, use the capitalized OR to separate them. For example, airline OR airlines

Section 2: Great Chaucer Websites
MJ- http://geociti.es/CollegePark/Hall/1170/chaucerhtml/chaucer.html Reliability: 3/5 - there are some footnotes but the links go to his own other websites rather than external sources; many sources are student essays and blogs. Herd to find information on the author. There is one good source (a book). Bubba- http://www.online-literature.com/chaucer/

Howard- http://englishcomplit.unc.edu/chaucer/chpages.htm Reliability: 5/5 - there is a comprehensive bibliography; it's a university website and the contributors are college professors. There are links to other unc websites and contacts are available and up to date.

Shao-Yan - [] Reliability: 4.5/5 - Good overall but the left-hand column contains ads by google; alexa.com however gives it a 5/5 for reliability. There is a full and valid bibliography, links to University of Texas. A 'world-class' resource.

William- http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/ Reliability : 4.25/5 - There's a tilde in the url, but it is up to date (updated Oct 2010), all links exist, and it's from Harvard university.

Minsoo - http://kirjasto.sci.fi/chaucer.htm Amy - http://faculty.winthrop.edu/kosterj/ENGL201/chaucer2.htm Nafisah - http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5164 Emily - [|http://geoffreychaucer.org] Chris - http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03642b.htm Justin- []

Section 3: Tips for Evaluating Websites & Finding Good Academic Sources
Shao-Yan: The 5 W's of Web Searching - Who wrote the pages - What is the purpose of the website - When was the site created - Where does the informations come from, what are the sources - Why is it useful for the current assignment Bubba: Check to see if the sources actually exist (some could be random sources). Minsoo : Documents and statistics should be cited. Nafisah: Use the 'CARS' strategy. Is it Credible? Is is Accurate? Is it Reasonable? Is it Supporting? MJ: Determine whether the source is objective or subjective; Usually objective and consistent writings are more reliable than biased ones but it also depends on what kind of research you're conducting. Sometimes, you may need biased sources depending on the situation. Justin: Check the publisher of the web page. Ask yourself if the publisher is legitimate, respected, or well known. Howard: Check the website domain. Make sure it is relevant to the information you're trying to find. For example, if you want to learn about Giant Sloths, a site ending in ".edu" may be more reliable than a site ending in ".com" Chris: Identify what type of website you are on by reading the URL. For example Look for the tilda (~) or name in the URL to figure out if it's a blog site, the name of an encyclopedia to indicate an encyclopedia entry, or the name of an accredited institution or organization. Most sites with reliable publishers and information will also provide their credentials, email addresses, footnotes, bibliography, or other links to prove that the website is factual. William- Always check the bibliography of the website. By doing so, you can examine whether the cited sources are actually in support of the arguments and facts that are discussed in the website. It is important the the information is supported by other existing informations; find at least 3 sources that agrees. Basically, what you're trying to do is using information to test the confirmability of another information. Emily- Check the information of the page about timeliness such as specific dates of events. Make sure if the currency of the information matter with your topics and how current are the links or sources provided.
 * Amy:** Go to www.alexa.com