Locating your Information
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Once you have created your research questions you must try and find the BEST information for your task. You need to ask yourself:
1) What type of information do I need (facts, statistics, examples, images, opinions)? 2) What is the best place to get this information (encyclopedia, government website, interview, newspaper, blog)? 3) How do I know that this information is authentic or accurate'? 4) What is the best search tool to use for this task to find the information I need (library catalogue, Search Engine, Online Databases etc)? 5) What Key Words should I use when I am conducting my search? Do you know what a BOOLEAN SEARCH is? This is a more advanced type of search that will help you narrow down your search results. |
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How do I know what is the best information for my task?
When you are locating your information you need to find authoritative sites / sources where 'experts' have written the information. Try to find out if the author is someone who is an expert in that field, someone who works in a University or someone who has done lot of research around the topic.
Type of website
You can tell quite a lot about a website just by looking at the URL (Unique Resource Locator).
See whether it is a commercial website (.com) a government (.gov) or education (.edu) website.
Recency of Information
You also need to look at how recent the information is. When was the information written? Check out the Publication Data.
When you are locating your information you need to find authoritative sites / sources where 'experts' have written the information. Try to find out if the author is someone who is an expert in that field, someone who works in a University or someone who has done lot of research around the topic.
Type of website
You can tell quite a lot about a website just by looking at the URL (Unique Resource Locator).
See whether it is a commercial website (.com) a government (.gov) or education (.edu) website.
Recency of Information
You also need to look at how recent the information is. When was the information written? Check out the Publication Data.
