Use Your Results: Example
Let's pretend that you have to do a research project on the Civil War. Your teacher has assigned you Andersonville as a topic. You don't know what this is because you didn't read the assigned textbook chapter and you forgot the book in your locker. Not cool, man! Let's see if we can salvage the situation.
You go to Google and put Andersonville in the search box.
Your first job is to find out some basic information about your topic. If you skim the results on the first page, you will see there are results about the Andersonville neighborhood in Chicago, as well as historical information about a Civil War Historical site.
To find this information, I scanned:
Notice that there are three pages in a row that mention the Civil War in the description and/or title. If I click on these, I find some basic information that will help me learn a little more and expand or narrow my search.
Here are few things that I learned:
My original search had 893,000 results with a lot of irrelevant information. I might revise my Google search to:
You go to Google and put Andersonville in the search box.
Your first job is to find out some basic information about your topic. If you skim the results on the first page, you will see there are results about the Andersonville neighborhood in Chicago, as well as historical information about a Civil War Historical site.
To find this information, I scanned:
- the blue page titles and the green URLs (web addresses)
- the web page excerpts beneath the titles.
Notice that there are three pages in a row that mention the Civil War in the description and/or title. If I click on these, I find some basic information that will help me learn a little more and expand or narrow my search.
Here are few things that I learned:
- Andersonville was a confederate prisoner of war camp during the civil war.
- It was officially known as Camp Sumter.
- Though it only operated for about 15 months, over 13,000 Union prisoners died of malnutrition, exposure and diseases. This seems to be why it is so famous.
- It was located in Georgia.
My original search had 893,000 results with a lot of irrelevant information. I might revise my Google search to:
#1: Andersonville "civil war" camp Georgia
#2: "Camp Sumter" Georgia "civil war"
The first revision expanded the search to 7,530,000 results, but the results in the first several pages all appear relevant to the search. The second gave us some different results with only 27,400 results.
As I continue to read and collect web pages on the topic, I will have to decide whether to change my search terms to look for specific aspects of my topic.
For example, through my reading, I found that General Sherman's march through Atlanta helped to bring about the closing of the prison. If I wanted to find out more about Sherman's role, I might change my search:
As I continue to read and collect web pages on the topic, I will have to decide whether to change my search terms to look for specific aspects of my topic.
For example, through my reading, I found that General Sherman's march through Atlanta helped to bring about the closing of the prison. If I wanted to find out more about Sherman's role, I might change my search:
Andersonville "civil war" camp Sherman
I would continue this cycle as I read and assimilate new information about the topic. Along the way, I am continually collecting new search terms and then changing the search so that can add missing information about my topic.