English 101

College Reading and Composition

Searching Current Events from Harbor College Library
Weekly Newsmagazines
Infotrac

Daily Newspapers
National Newspapers
Los Angeles Times

Analysis
Congressional Quarterly Researcher

Books
Library Catalog

 

 
Searching Literary Criticism from Harbor College Library
Magill OnLiterature

Contemporary Literary Criticism

 
 
 
Searching the Internet
With Boolean searching, you can use the terms "AND", "OR", and "NOT" to refine your search. 
    (Morrison AND Bluest) finds all web pages that contain both words 
    (Morrison OR Bluest) finds all web pages that contain either word 
    (Morrison -Bluest) finds all web pages that contain the first word but not the   second

Google (www.google.com)
    How to Basic Search

Raging.Com (AltaVista) (http://ragingsearch.altavista.com/)
    How to Search

Librarian's Index to the Internet (http://lii.org)
    About the LII

Open Directory (www.dmoz.org)
    About the Open Directory
 

 
Evaluating Online Resources
Make sure you are in the right place.
Does this site address the topic you are researching? Did you learn anything? Was the page worth visiting?

When in doubt, doubt.
Is the information on the site documented? Do you think it is accurate? Did authors indicate their research methods or provide any supportive evidence for their conclusions?


Consider the source.

Who are the authors of the Web page? What gives them their expertise? By what authority do they write? Are the authors and their credentials clearly identified? Who is responsible for the site? Is this a commercial, governmental, personal, or academic Web site? From what country does it originate?


Know what's happening.

What is the purpose of the site? Is the main purpose to inform, to persuade, or to sell you something? Is the site's text well written? Do you understand what is being said? What do you think has not been said that should be addressed?


Look at details.

Is the site well organized? Is all the information you needed on the top page or easily found on another page within the site? Are there misspelled words or examples of poor grammar? Do the site's links work? Are they evaluated or annotated in any way? Do they send you beyond the site to other reliable sources of information? Does the site offer anything unique? Does it tell you more than you could find out in an encyclopedia? Are the graphics on the page clear and helpful or distracting and confusing?


Distinguish Web pages from pages found on the Web.

Do you think this page was designed for the Web, or do you think it was originally something else? If it was originally something else, what something else was it?

Henderson, John R. I CYouSee: T Is For Thinking. 13 June 2000. 17 October 2000.
<http://www.ithaca.edu/library/Training/hott.html>

 
 
Citing Online Resources
Online! Citation Styles (http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/online/citex.html)
        Citing a World Wide Web site (http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/online/cite5.html#1)