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7.2: Internet Exploration Assignment

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    Assignment Overview

    For this assignment, you will identify quality Internet resources (websites, government documents, and open access articles) related to your chosen research topic. This will provide you and opportunity to practice the searching and information evaluation strategies introduced this week in the tutorials and readings. Please upload your work as a .doc or PDF file through Blackboard.

    There are 3 parts to this assignment so please read the following instructions carefully.

    Instructions

    Part 1: Conduct a domain search to locate government (.gov) websites and resources related to your chosen research topic. Answer the questions listed below the example search.

    You may find it helpful to review the tutorial “Using the Internet” — specifically the part about domain searching. Below is a sample government domain search, using the Google search engine (though you are welcome to use another search engine of your choice, such as Bing, for example).

    Example Search:

    Screen-Shot-2017-08-30-at-9.45.14-AM-300x49.png

    a. How did you conduct your searches?

    • Try at least 2 different ways to search on your topic using phrase searching, domain searching, and other advanced searching techniques covered in the “Using the Internet” tutorial.
    • Include your search statements (what you typed into the search box), similar to how I’ve shown mine in the example above.

    b. List a minimum of 3 government websites/resources from your search results that looked particularly interesting to you. Include the title of the website/resource and the name of the government agency that produced/authored it.

    c. Of the government sites and resources you looked through, which one seems the most useful to you at this point of your research process? Include the following citation elements:

    • Title of the website/resource
    • Name of the government agency that authored the information
    • Publication date, when the information was last updated, or copyright date (whichever one is provided)
    • Web link or URL where it can be accessed

    d. Explain why the website/resource you selected is relevant or important to your research (3 sentences minimum).

    Part 2: Locate an Open Access article related to your topic using the Directory of Open Access Journals (http://doaj.org).

    a. How did you conduct your searches?

    • Try at least 2 different ways to search on your topic
    • Include your search statements as you did for #1.

    b. Of the articles you looked through, which one seems the most useful to you at this point of your research process? Include the following citation elements:

    • Title of the article
    • Title of the journal it is published in
    • Author(s)
    • Publication date
    • Web link or URL where it can be accessed in its full text

    c. Explain why the article you selected is relevant or important to your research (3 sentences minimum).

    Part 3: Locate a quality Internet resource (e.g., website or web document) of your choice using any of the search strategies introduced in class so far.

    a. How did you conduct your searches?

    • Try at least 2 different ways to search on your topic (you can try a different domain search (.edu or .org, for example), another OA article search, or use another search strategy you haven’t tried yet from the tutorials).
    • Include your search statements.

    b. Use the evaluation criteria from this week’s tutorials to select an internet source
    that will be useful at this point in your research process. Include the following
    citation elements:

    • Title of the website/resource
    • Author (this could be a person or organization)
    • Publication date, when the information was last updated, or copyright date (whichever one is provided)
    • Web link or URL where it can be accessed

    c. Explain your evaluation process for determining that the source you selected is of quality and appropriate for academic research. (3-4 sentences minimum)

    • In your explanation, be sure to include why you think the author (whether it be a person or organization) is a credible source of information.
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