Lesson 3: Internet Search Facilities 

We are to supposed to conduct a search using these two search engines and compare them. The search engines that we tried out are google and google scholar. 

I never knew the importance of create search strategy. Usually I just search randomly. Today I learnt to pick out keywords and put them together with the usage of boolean operators (e.g. OR, AND, * and etc.) to customise the results I want. I love the boolean operators, they are very useful. If the results generated are not enough, you can add 'OR' to expand the results; if there are too many results generated, you can add 'AND' to narrow the results. 

I was totally stunned by google's features when I was exploring google. It allows you to choose the language written, translate web page and search across language. This is so smart. I always have troubles when I visit foreign sites and I can't read them. With this feature, it removes the language barrier. On top of that, there is also a key 'I'm feeling lucky' which direct you to the first web page returned for you query. This quick search feature takes you less time searching for web pages and gives you more time looking at it. Isn't this great if you only know the basic knowledge of the subject you are researching on (eg. if you don't understand the meaning of HIV, it will direct you to wikipedia which give you enough knowledge about it)?

Basically google scholar is a subset of google search engine. Google scholar does a more specific search which gives article-based results, whereas google does a general search. The other shortcoming of google scholar is that you only get to see an abstraction of the article. Sometimes in order to view the full context , you have to pay. If you are doing a generic search (eg. research on AIDS) I will advise you to use google. Google scholar is definitely a 'no' to me unless I need to get sources which are articles or journal based. Like my case, I am searching on the effect of HIV/AIDS on youth which is a topic that people discuss and write about. Google scholar will come in use in finding those articles.

Everytime you refer to a source, you have to cite it to acknowledge the author of the source. Otherwise it might be considered as plagiarism. Keeping a bibliography of the citations help you to archive all the references you had. So at any point of time if you need to refer  to the source again, you can track it from your list. 

The other activity of the day is participating in the discussion forum. It is something totally new to me. At first I went to healingwell forum and posted a question on the effects of HIV/AIDS on youth. I thought it was quite easy. But when I revisit the site to check for reply, I saw a message from the admin and I realised that this is a forum for those who are living with or affected by HIV/AIDS. So I had budge into a 'prohibited' area. One words to summarise my first forum participation experience- 'sweat'. It is so scary.

After this incident, I learnt the importance of reading the sticky note in the forum before posting or replying threads. Then I start my forum participation again at healthboards. This time round, I made sure I read through the sticky note thoroughly before I start posting.