Search Term Creation
- Have a well-formed research question
- Extract core terms from this research question
- Brainstorm a list of alternative terms or phrases for each core term
- Organize the list of terms and phrases by creating a hierarchy, indicating broader and narrower terms for each core term
- Identify which terms you would combine to conduct a search
- Identify which terms would produce the best results for the information you are looking for
- Search to Learn: If you don’t have the vocabulary you need to complete the search, do a brief google search to build your vocabulary
- E.g. Joseph James DeAngelo
Google Tips
Tips for Googling:
- If you aren’t getting the search results you want change your search terms. Make them more specific or less specific, use synonyms, or rephrase.
- Use quotation marks to search for an exact phrase. e.g. “Wolves of Yellowstone” will only return search results with that exact phrase
- use search term site:domain to pull up websites with only a specific domain e.g. wolf site:edu will only pull up .edu sites with “wolf” in them. You can do this for all domains, .edu .org, .gov.
- Add a dash (–) before a word or site to exclude all results that include that word. This is especially useful for words with multiple meanings, like Jaguar the car brand and jaguar the animal. e.g. jaguar speed -car
Lateral Reading
Lateral Reading is leaving a site after a quick scan and opening up new browser tabs in order to judge the credibility of the original site. Easy Lateral Reading Skills:- Ask yourself who is behind the information? Identify the publisher (often found in the “about” section) and look up the wikipedia page for that publisher
- Do a deliberate Google search for the source or information you are evaluating.
- Read what trusted and reliable sources are saying about the site or claim. Try to find four or five other sources that discuss your source. (If you can’t find that many, that’s a sign that your source might not be good.)
- Media Bias Fact Check
- Ad Fontes Media
- Politifact
- FactCheck.org
- FlackCheck
- OpenSecrets.org
- Fact Check (Washington Post)
- Snopes
- Duke Reporters’ Lab: Fact Checking
- International Fact-Checking Network fact-checkers’ code of principles
- How Facebook’s Fact-checking Partnership will Work. (NYT)
- News Use Across Social Media Platforms 2016 (Pew Research Report )
- Facebook to offer users tips on spotting fake news
Databases:
Utah’s Online Library Remember: Look online if you need to research High Schools —>Gale Reference Collection 9-12 —>Biography —>Gale OneFile News We also have history databases that have been purchased for the school to use: World History in Context U.S History in Context Password: bengals Check Browse Topics to find your specific decade
