Using the Internet to Support Your Speech

The purpose of this lesson is to help you use the Internet to find supporting material for your speech.

Using a Good Mix of Sources (Print and Internet)

Using a variety of sources will enhance the credibility of your speech. Although the Internet is considered an integral part of our life, it still carries a stigma of not be credible. 

Why? Well there is so much information on the Web and most of it comes from unreliable and/or undocumented claims. It's okay to use the Web for some of your research, but not all of it. 

Now I am going to confuse you. A majority of what we call "printed material" can be accessed online, but is not considered to be the Internet. Printed material can be thought of as material that is found somewhere on a shelf or database. Printed material is often well documented and researched based. A medical journal that is online can be considered printed material, but medical advice on someones blog or website is Internet material. Comprende? Good, let's move on.

Starting at the Library

Physical libraries or a library portal is a great starting point. As stated in Lesson 9, libraries have access to large amounts of printed material and databases.

Here's another great resource- Virtual Libraries
www.vlib.org

Critical Thinking

Critical thinking has been described as "purposeful reflective judgment concerning what to believe or what to do." This will play a role in gathering resources for your speech. 

It's a good habit to ALWAYS question the credibility of a source. Here are some good questions to ask: 

• Is it well documented? 
• How long ago was the research done? (As we all know, research findings change. If you go back far enough in your research you can find where smoking was good for your health. Crazy) 
• How long ago was the site updated? 
• Will my audience accept the source(s) I am using? 
• Is there similar information/data that can also be found relating to this information?

Ask a better question and you will get a better answer.

What's the Deal with Search Engines

Larry Page and Sergey Brin (Google Founders)

Let me get a little techy on you with search engines. Currently Google is the God of all searches engines and everyone wants to get ranked high so their site comes up first. Well those geniuses at Google (who I envy very much) have developed a fancy algorithm called PageRank (named after the co-founder Larry Page) to determine who gets listed above somebody else. I will not go into great detail here, but just know it's not always the most credible and relevant information you searched for. 

Now the boys at Google are always working on making searches more relevant, and with the growth of social media there is going to be some more changes of how search results appear. Just know that you must use your critical thinking skills when clicking on any web site.

Here is something that will help you though. Any site ending in .edu or .gov has to go through a special process to get that extension. It's safe to say that a .edu is going to be a educational institution and .gov will be government. 

Anyone can get a .org or any other domain extension.

Search Engine vs. Subject Directory

A search engine can be defined as a program that searches documents for specified keywords and returns a list of the documents where the keywords were found. Although search engine is really a general class of programs, the term is often used to specifically describe systems like Google,  Alta Vista and Excite that enable users to search for documents on the World Wide Web and USENET newsgroups.

Typically, a search engine works by sending out a spider to fetch as many documents as possible. Another program, called an indexer, then reads these documents and creates an index based on the words contained in each document. Each search engine uses a proprietary algorithm to create its indices such that, ideally, only meaningful results are returned for each query.

A subject directory can be defined as a directory that is comprised of links organized into subject categories by human beings. Subject directories are intended primarily for browsing; that is, the searcher may peruse a subject hierarchy in search of information. Many also feature a search program.

Common search directories include:

DMOZ (www.dmoz.org)
Yahoo! Directory (dir.yahoo.com)
Academic Info (www.academicinfo.net)

There are also meta-search engines that scan a variety of individual search engines simultaneously. Meta-search engines run "wide" but not necessarily "deep." Some example of meta-search engines include:

Dogpile (www.dogpile.com)
Metacrawler (www.metacrawler.com)
Ixquick (www.ixquick.com)

FYI: I use Metacrawler quite frequently!!!

"Tainted" Searches

Here's the quick and dirty with what I call "tainted" searches. All search engines make money of advertising. You will find that anytime you do a search there are two to three search results at the top (usually highlighted in a different color) that paid money to get there. Just because someone paid to get to the top, doesn't mean they are the best. 

Advertising is big money and I'm all for it. In fact all the advertisements on my site are paid advertisements. Because I am listing them on my site, I get a portion of the money when someone clicks on an ad. 

Many of these ads are great in what they offer and the information they give. As with all things, you just need to use your critical thinking skills when viewing a site. 

If you are on a site and you see an ad that interests you, go and click on it. There just might be something that interests you and you are helping someone out financially.
Good Search Commands

There are a few tips that will help you find what you are looking for. Sometimes it is good to be very specific in your searches and sometimes it is good to be general.

If you are needing to be specific or need to refine your search because there is a billion returns on your inquiry, you can do the following:

1. Use quotation marks around the complete phrase your are looking for. The search engines will return results that have the complete phrase together. Example- if I type in mad cow in the search box I could get back anything that has the word mad in it and anything with cow in it. If I enclosed the words "mad cow" then the search engine will only return results that have those two words together.
2. You can use the Advanced Search tab located on the search engine to narrow down you searches.

Citing Your Sources

I use this site.
http://www.citationmachine.net/