How to Conduct Research on the Internet

Six Steps to Research	Key Ideas
1. Define your task.	What question or perspective on your topic must you uncover? After you have decided what you need to find out, make a list of questions or subtopics to research.
2. Choose some strategies.	Where will you search for information? Consider all possible sources, including newspapers, magazines, books, the Internet, and people who can provide information and insights.
3. Locate and access information.	Where do you find reliable information? How do you locate it? If the Internet is your primary resource base, you MUST evaluate the website before using the information it provides. See below. Several tips for effective use of the Internet are given below.
4. Use the information.	How do you choose which information to use? Be sure to use only evidence that supports your position or the point or perspective you want to convey.
5. Synthesize the information.	How do your organize your information? Use graphic organizers.
6. Evaluate the end product.	How well does your final product meet your goal? Evaluate your work and/or have it evaluated by others.

Evaluating the credibility of a website Millions of websites are available, ranging from corporate sites to those designed by young children. Because anyone can publish almost anything on the Internet, determining if the person responsible has any real expertise in the subject area may be difficult. When you are looking for information, evaluate the authenticity, quality, and usefulness of any website before you use it for research. Ask yourself the following questions: Credibility Is there an author? Is the page signed? Is the author qualified? An expert? How do you know? How can you find out? If not, how legitimate is the information? Is there a Contact Us button? Can you contact the author for more information or for permission to use material? If not, how legitimate is the information? Is there an About Us button? Can you find out more about the sponsor of the site? If not, how legitimate is the information? Is the sponsor a legitimate or reputable organization? How can you tell? If not, how legitimate is the information? If the page includes neither a signature nor a sponsor, is there any other way to determine its origin? If not, how legitimate is the information? More information about the site Look for a header or footer: Information about the author and the site sponsor may be provided. Look at the URL and the domain: .com - a commercial site .edu - an educational institution .gov - a government site .org - an organization, usually non-profit .net - administrative sites in North America Sometimes you will see an indication of the country of origin, such as .uk for the United Kingdom, .ca for Canada, or .au for Australia. See a comprehensive list here. Search for more information: Use your search engine to find more about the author, the article, and the sponsoring organization. You may be able to verify the reputation of the author or organization through additional searching. Contact the page sponsor to find more: E-mail the author or page sponsor if you want more information. Accuracy and Currency Up-to-date or timely: Is a date given on the publication or a date for revisions to the site? Factual: Are the sources documented from other reputable sources? How can you verify the accuracy of the information? Supporting evidence: Are statistics or other evidence of research provided? Are the sources of information referenced according to proper documentation standards? Comprehensive: Are all important facts included, or is some important information omitted? Quality control: Are there spelling and typographical errors? Links: Are the links current or have they been moved? Moved links probably indicate the site is old and has not been revised lately.

More information about the site:

Objectivity Does the information show a minimum of bias? Is the page designed to sway opinion? Is there any advertising on the page?

Download the attached checklist to evaluate a website.Using a search engine: A search engine is a computer program designed to help find information on the Internet. It works by web crawling, indexing, and searching existing web pages and then storing the information it locates for retrieval by users.

The world's most popular search engine is Google, which has several versions in several languages. Google allows users to search data bases of webpages for information, images, and current news items.

Keywords: Users come to the search engine and make queries by entering keywords. The engine looks up the index and provides a listing of best-matching web pages according to its criteria, usually with a short summary containing the document's title and sometimes parts of the text. To refine your search, put quotation marks around the terms you want searched.

For example, if you were looking for information about residential schools in Alberta, enter "residential schools Alberta" complete with the quotation marks. Otherwise, the search engine will look for those terms separately and provide you with some irrelevant web pages. Most search engines support the use of the terms AND, OR, and NOT to further refine the search.

Take notes: When you have located accurate and relevant information, you need to take notes. Do not copy and paste the text! If you do that, you are using someone else's work as your own. That is plagiarism and is not permitted! Always keep track of your sources. While researching the Internet, record for your bibliography all the URLs (addresses) of the sites you use.