CONTEXTUALIZED ONLINE

SEARCH AND RESEARCH

SKILLS
Searching the Web

The World Wide Web contains billions of pages of

information and finding relevant and reliable information
can be a challenge. Search engines are powerful tools that
index millions of web sites.
Research

is a generalized term. It is used to look for particular

information from the Web. It includes any activity where topic
is identified, and there is an effort to actively gather information
for understanding purposes.
 There are some tips on how to conduct research
online:

1. Define your topic. Narrow it down, but do not constrain it

too much. Writer should consider the assignment or purpose.
2. Have a question in mind. Focus on answering the question you
want. If it's a number of questions, then start with one
3. Narrow your topic. Search engines use your previous search
history and geographic location, and send you the most related
result. Start searching for "weather" and most search engines will
return the weather conditions you are from. However, if all those
filters fail, try to narrow down what you are looking for. For
example, if you were looking for experiments in science
research, it would be better to include what branch of science it
is, or what type of study it is.
4. Look for a credible source. Just because it presents something
as a fact does not mean it is. That is because the material can be
edited by anyone. Search the path for the cited text to be
navigated to the footnote where the source list is stored while
using wikis. Click the information source, and see if the
information is reliable.
Advanced Search.

Using the advanced search is the best way to filter

information you get from search engines. This will allow you to
filter out unneeded details.
Advanced Search

Keywords and Symbols You can use those keywords and

symbols for your advanced search on Microsoft search engine:
 SYMBOL Function
+ Finds web pages containing all of the terms followed
by the + symbol; helps you to include terms that are
usually overlooked.
““ Finds the exact words in a phrase.

( ) Finds the exact words in a phrase.

AND or & Finds web pages containing all the words and
phrases.
NOT or - Excludes web pages containing a word or phrase.

OR or / Finds web sites containing either the words or

phrases.
 By default, all searches are AND searches.
 You must capitalize the NOT and OR functions. Otherwise, it will
ignore them as stop words, which are commonly occurring words and
numbers that are omitted to speed a full-text search.  Stop words and
all punctuation marks except for the symbols noted in this topic, are
ignored unless they are surrounded by quotation marks or preceded by
the + symbol.
 Only the first ten terms are used to get search results.
 Similar to the MDAS, whenever you solve an arithmetic problem
(where multiplication is computed first over division, addition, and
subtraction), term grouping and Boolean functions are supported in the
following preferred order:
1. Parenthesis ( )
2. Quotation marks “ “
3. NOT + -
4. And &
5. OR/
 Because OR is the function with the lowest precedence, enclose OR
terms in parenthesis when combined with other operators in search.
 Similar to the MDAS, whenever you solve an arithmetic problem
(where multiplication is computed first over division, addition, and
subtraction), term grouping and Boolean functions are supported in the
following preferred order:
1. Parenthesis ( )
2. Quotation marks “ “
3. NOT + -
4. And &
5. OR/
 Because OR is the function with the lowest precedence, enclose OR
terms in parenthesis when combined with other operators in search.