SPANISH LANGUAGE RESOURCES: GENERAL: Searching Tips

If you have searching difficulty...or if your searches usually result in millions of hits, you may need some tips on how to conduct a more effective search.  Click on the link below to access a helpful Searching Strategy PowerPoint.  

For the sake of time, I have included some of the key hints in images or text boxes on this page (however, I highly recommend viewing the entire PowerPoint if you have not done so for some other class).

HELPFUL HINTS FOR SEARCHING

• Teachers will often tell you to use reliable and academic/scholarly websites for your research, and this often means you should avoid using .com sites.  This is because .com means “commercial” (which is a paid site that is most likely a biased, for profit site). 
• Okay then, what’s the difference with all these sites? The domain type gives an indication to the author of the page, and that’s important! This helps you determine authenticity and reliability.  The domain type is a clue in determining who is responsible for the information on that page.  To help you find a credible sources, you should know some basic domain types and which are more reliable than others.
• Most reliable domains/websites (though you should always be a discerning consumer of information and question everything):  .edu (an educational domain, usually a college or university) and/or .org (a U.S. non-profit organization)
• Most likely reliable domains/websites (though you should be aware of their potential for bias):  .gov (a U.S. governmental/non-military site) and/or .mil (a military site/agency) and/or .museum (suffix used by museums)
• Least reliable domains/websites (due to known and common bias):  .com (a commercial, for-profit business site) and/or .net (a network, internet service provider, or other for-profit organization) and/or .biz (a for-profit business site) and/or .pro (a suffix used by professional who are usually privately advertising for themselves), etc.

• Avoid using personal/privately created websites:

  Personal websites created by relatively "unknown" individuals are considered unacceptable for academic/scholarly research...because of the strong potential for bias, the lack of information on the author, etc.
  

   

  How do I know if I’m on someone’s personal page? Here are some hints!

  Look out for personal names included in the URL/website address:  http://www.mrsfrech.com/blog/don’t-be-scared.com  

  Look out for identifying words like "homepage" or "students" or "faculty" in tehe URL/website address:  http://www.homepage.padua/students/it’s-just-a-speech.com  

  Look out for symbols such as "~" or "%" because those types of symbols are used to identify personal pages):  http://www.~paduapeople.com/blog/scaredy-cat.com  OR  http://www.beabruin%/i-can-do-it.com

  (Also watch out for other well-known personal/public pages such as wikis of any type, Angelfire, GeoCities, etc.)

  
  

If you are considering a general website for your research, be sure to consider its worthiness for academic/scholarly research.  A quick test for that is the CRAAP test.  Here's a chart that shows you how to evaluate the website (source: ctjlibrary.pbworks.com).

So...at the very least, be sure you do the following:

1. Look at that URL (to see what type of page it is and why it was created...see more about this above).
2. Look at the domain (to see if it is a .com, .gov, .edu, etc., which also provides hints as to the site's purpose, whether to inform, persuade, sell, etc.)
3. Look at the publisher/author and its/his/her credentials (to see who is responsible for the information on the site; no author is a big red flag).
4. Look for a date of publication (to see if the currency of the information makes the material worthy of being a resource).
5. Look for additional signs of quality/academic information (some signs may be a Works Cited, or footnotes, or additional links/resources, etc.).
6. Based on the above information, determine whether or not the particular source is worthy of being included in your research.  (Note:  This is why you are frequently being referred to databases.  #1-#5 has already been completed for you by professionals who have reviewed the information for authority and currency...and have deemed the information current, accurate, and scholarly.  Databases are great for research!!!!)

Q:  My teacher told me that I’m only allowed to use .edu and .org sites for this paper.  How do I do that?

A:  In the search (query) box, put “site:edu and” or "site:org and" before your other search terms (see the image below).  This will result in only .edu sites appearing.  WOW!!!!

BIG HINT:  It also usually works to just add domain types after your search term(s).  See the following example (and screenshots):  drinking and teens .edu .org

If you need specific types of resources, like maps or polls, etc., you can use the .ORG search mentioned above to help you search out those specific resources.  See the following screenshot (which shows how this individual wants information about poverty, but is specifically looking for polls and maps that contain that information).