1 Dave Inman Project Research

2 Process of Research Literature search Refine search Literature review More focus

3 Timescale  Start early in life of project  Intensive in months 1-2  On-going throughout first semester  Further research in semester 2

4 Sources  Past projects  Books  Library  Friends  Tutors  Journals / magazines  Library  Web  Tutor / friend recommended sites  Search engines

5 Past projects

6 LISA (

7 Search for Journals

8 Journals in Computing

9 Electronic Journals

10 Database Cross- Searching  Many subjects are cross-disciplinary and so the ability to search across several databases is a useful time-saver. 

11 Library catalog

12 Web Search Engines Two kinds: Manually updated (e.g. Yahoo!) Auto updated (e.g. AltaVista)

13 Links to Search Engines

14 Links to Search Engines

15 Search Engine Display Chart

How can you search more effectively?  Plan your search in advance  Become familiar with advanced search concepts  Learn to use search engine features & search syntax  Review and refine your searches

Overview of Search Concepts  Boolean Operators - AND, OR, NOT  lions AND tigers  cheetahs OR jaguars NOT cars  Field and phrase searching  “Safari Corporation Inc.”  title: "Safari Corporation Inc.”  Truncation using wildcard symbol  lion*  Parentheses  (lions OR tigers) AND (zoos OR parks)

Example Search Topic The possible link between mobile phones and brain tumours ("mobile phone*" OR "cellular phone*") AND ("brain tumour*" OR "brain tumor*")

Search Engine Issues  Complex Boolean searches do not work on all search engines  Different search engines have different features and syntax  Case sensitivity - use lowercase unless searching for a proper name

Searching Features  Complex queries (Boolean, parentheses, truncation etc) supported to varying degrees  Almost universal:  Use of + and - signs eg +jaguars -cars  Phrase searching using double quotes " "  Stemming - sometimes automatic  Field searching and limits  title, url, date, language, domain  May be in separate "advanced" search page  May be in form of menus or check-lists

Relevancy Ranking Factors used to rank results:   Number of occurrences of word(s) on page   Where the word(s) occur ie more important if found in title or at top of page   Page contains all words   Words found near or next to each other   Link popularity - sites ranked higher if they have lots of other sites linking to them

22 Intelligent Agents: WiseWire An ‘agent’ you can train with your preferences

23 Google  Uses citations or "backlinks".  A page is ranked as important if lots of other pages point to it.  A page will be ranked more highly if lots of other pages with high ranking point to it.  Google! Looks at over a billion links.  Also try Google Print ( for finding info in books  Also Google Scholar ( for academic work

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25 References Chapter 4 of : Dawson, C.W. - Computing projects: A student's guide - Prentice Hall 2000 Parts © Netskills,University of Newcastle Web tutorial on ICT research (