CS 105P

Searching the Internet

Objectives

1. Topic 1: Browsing the Internet with confidence
• How do you search Internet newsgroups (USENET)? (www.deja.com)
2. Topic 2: Searching the Internet
• It's not uncommon for a search to return thousands of references. How do you pick from among the different references?
• What are the different types of Internet addresses? And, what do they suggest about the content you will find there? (.com = commercial, .edu = education, .org = organization, .gov = government) (look at the directory path in the URL. Does it contain a ~name? If so, it is a personal home page as opposed to an Internet site setup specifically for the subject.)
• What are some of the ways you can be lead astray by the results of a search engine? (Document locations change. Keywords in document may not match subject of document.)
• What are some of the things you can look for in the results of a search to help you find what you are looking for? (Title of document. First few lines of document. Location information.)
• What kinds of problems do you encounter when you are trying to search for some information? (Did you try searching newsgroups? Did you try following a web index, like what you might find at yahoo or netscape? Did you try different search engines? Different key words? Advanced search options? Most search engines allow you to enter complex expressions for searching. The syntax of the expressions are usually different so you have to read the instructions for each site.)
• Search engines the prioritize by popularity. How is popularity measured?
• As a last resort, if you are searching for information and can't find it you can ask a question in a newsgroup. What are some of the rules of "net etiquette'? (Search before you post. Tell what you did to try to find the answer before you ask. Offer to provide a summary of personal responses back to the newsgroup.)
3. Topic 3: Newsgroups
• How do you read from and post to a newsgroup?
• How do you find a newsgroup for a specific topic?
• How do you see all the messages? (Including the messages you have read.

Concepts

1. What are newsgroups? (One Internet service estimates that 900 megabytes of data (the equivalent of 900 400-page novels) is posted to Internet discussion groups each day.)
2. What are Internet Discussion Groups?