DiDA
Web research
How do you recognise unofficial websites so that you can avoid using unreliable information? Use this section to brush up on your search techniques to find the best images, statistics and information on the web.
Useful websites
bbc.co.uk is a fantastic resource for projects. You'll be able to find information on nearly any subject.
Some of the main sections of bbc.co.uk are listed below:
- BBC Archives
- Business
- Children
- Teens
- Entertainment
- Health
- History
- Learning
- Lifestyle
- Music
- Nations and local
- News
- Science and Nature
- Society and Culture
- Sport
Search engines and directories
Search engines
Search engines are the most popular type of search tool. Just type in one or more words and the search engine will produce a list of relevant websites. The internet has millions of websites, so the results list can be up to a hundred pages long.
Examples of search engines are:
Directories
Directories [directories: it is like a telephone directory but contains web address instead of telephone numbers ] are useful tools if you're looking for a particular subject. Click on the subject you're interested in and then follow the sub_ topics until you find relevant websites.
The links below are to some of the most popular website directories.
Search tips
Some searches can produce hundreds of results pages linking to websites that are not relevant to your search. To avoid this happening, be careful when choosing your search words. The more specific your words are, the better your search results will be.
Follow the tips below to improve your search results.
Searching for a phrase or words that appear together
Use quotation marks to search for a phrase of several words together. Here's an example:
Searching for more than one word
Eliminating non-essential words from your search
Avoid using words that are not relevant in your searches. Including words like 'how, and, in, to or as' in a search will give a list of irrelevant search results. Only use the names of people, places or things that you want to find.
Do not include unnecessary words in your search
Only include the important words - Oxford museums
Searching with more than one key word
Use the + sign to search for webpages with more than one key word.
Use the + sign to search for webpages with more than one key word. Adding a plus to your search will ensure that all your results include the key words. For example, if you wanted to find out about recycling paper in Cardiff, you can improve your search by typing:
Removing words from your search
Include a -sign against words you don't want included in search results
Put a - sign in front of any words that you don't want to be included in your search results. For example, you might want to search for information about the place Wimbledon, but not not about tennis.
Now practise these search techniques in an
To practise more searching techniques [searching techniques: techniques which make searching for information on the Internet easier ], visit BBC Webwise.
Photos and images
Some search engines, eg Google allow you to search for images using key words. You can use exactly the same search techniques used for searching for websites.
Choose the Images option in search engines to find images
You must remember that if you use images that are owned by other people, you could be breaking copyright lawcopyright law: The law which makes it illegal for a person to copy an item such as a magazine article, a photo or a CD without the agreement of the copyright owner.. For more information on copyright, visit Bitesize DiDA: Image copyright.
Many websites offer free use of images and photographs for students. BBC Schools allow students to use images from the BBC Schools website for educational purposes. Check the BBC Schools Copyright page for more information.
Below is a list of websites that offer free images.
- http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/
- http://www.freeimages.co.uk/
- http://www.coolclips.com/
- http://www.scran.ac.uk/
- http://www.oup.co.uk/oxed/children/oise/pictures/
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain_images
- http://gimp-savvy.com/PHOTO-ARCHIVE/
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet websites
Statistics on the web
Statistical information is based on a study of the number of times something happens or is present. Often, the government carries out large research projects to collect information about people and their lives. These results are often available on the internet and can be used in your DiDA research project.
What can statistics be used for?
Statistics can be used to back up or prove a point. For example, if you wanted to say that the village you live in has a high crime rate, you could prove this by quoting statistics for the number of crimes committed in a year.
In the UK, the census is a massive survey sent to every household in the country. A census is carried out every ten years and is the main source of statistics on income, housing, health and employment.
The census is one of the biggest sources of statistical information in the UK
Where can statistics be found on the web?
It's important to use accurate statistics in your DiDA project. Make sure you use statistics from an official website and, if possible, compare figures with other sources. Listed below are some useful websites providing statistics.
- UK statistics at http://www.statistics.gov.uk/
- Local government statistics at http://www.direct.gov.uk/
- Census statistics at http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census/
- Crime statistics at http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/
- Environmental statistics at http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/
- Food statistics at http://www.food.gov.uk/
- Health statistics at http://www.dh.gov.uk/
- Met Office weather statistics at http://www.met-office.gov.uk/
- Tourism statistics at http://www.visitbritain.com/research
- Wildlife statistics at http://www.panda.org/news_facts/publications/index.cfm
Don't forget to include the source of your statistics in the bibiography.
Reliable websites
The web is a great tool for finding:
- facts and figures
- statistics
- maps
- information about people, places and businesses
There are billions of different websites on the internet. Anybody can set up a website and publish anything they want to. You will often find that information you read on the internet isn't always true, so it is very important to be able to recognise the signs of a potentially inaccurate website.
The most reliable websites are often those set up by an official organisation or businesses.
Official websites can often be identified by their web address. Here are some common parts of web addresses that you should be familiar with.
Web addresses and suffixes
| Suffix | Example | Description |
|---|---|---|
| .com | http://www.microsoft.com | The "standard" ending to web adress could be used by a commercial organisation |
| .org | http://www.oxfam.org | Generally used by not for profit organisations |
| co.uk | http://www.bbc.co.uk | A company's website based in the UK |
| .gov | http://www.westberks.gov.uk/ | A government organisation, eg local council |
| .ac.uk or.sch.uk | http://www.bham.ac.uk/ | University, schools and colleges |
Unofficial websites
Most websites found on the internet don't belong to companies or organisations. Many people publish websites as a hobby or for political reasons. Many websites set up by people can be:
- inaccurate
- out of date
- biased
It's often quite easy to spot an unofficial website [unofficial website: a site that is not produced by or belongs to an 'official' company or organisation ]. Just look out for the following:
Address
You can often spot whether a website is unofficial by looking at its address. The website is likely to be unofficial if the address (URL):
- Does not include any of the following: gov, ac, .co.uk, org, .com at the end of the address.
- Has long addresses such as http://jam.canoe.ca/Music/Artists/C/Coldplay/ConcertReviews/2005/05/12/1035923.html.
- Very long and includes free web hosting companies such as Yahoo, AOL, geocities or freewebspace.
The more you use the web, the more familiar you'll become with different URLs.
Design
You can usually tell that a website is produced by an unofficial source just by looking at the website design. An unofficial website is likely to have:
- ugly graphics and animated gifs
- poor page layout
- spelling errors
- broken links to pages
Bright colours and poor quality photographs are not very attractive
Updates
Most websites include a 'last updated' date. Always check this. Some websites haven't been updated for years and information may be completely out of date.
Daily news - last updated 04/07/2003
Use of unofficial websites
Some unofficial websites can be useful for finding out people's opinions. Websites about hobbies, music and travel often provide valuable advice and opinions about everything from restaurant to gig reviews.
Web shortcuts: Favourites and History
You'll find that each time you use the internet, you will visit many different websites. Some you will only look at briefly and decide it's not what you were looking for, other times you will find valuable websites that you will want to visit regularly throughout the DiDA course.
Favourites
Don't risk losing the web address of a really useful website. If you find a useful website, make sure you add it to your list of favourites.
- Click the 'Favourites' button at the top of your browser.
- Select 'Add to favourites'.
- Choose the folder you want to save the page to.
Remember to organise your favourites into folders. You could have a folder for each of your GCSE subjects and sub folders for topics.
A drop down list of folders from the Favourites tab at the top of the navigation bar
History
If you forget to add a useful website to your favourites, use the History button to find a website again.
- Click on the 'History' button
- You can then see a list of all the websites visited today, last week or two weeks ago.
History icon on the top of the browser
Web shortcuts: New Window and Find
Opening a new window
Sometimes you'll want to have more than one window open on your computer at the same time. It's often handy to have several webpages open at the same time.
- Press Control + N (or Apple + N on a Mac) on your keyboard at the same time to open a new window.
Finding relevant information on a webpage
Some webpages can have long passages of text and it can be difficult to find the information you want. To save reading through the whole page, use the technique below to find relevant information quickly.
- Press Control + F (or Apple + F on a Mac) on your keyboard to bring up a 'Find box'.
- Enter the word you're looking for.
- Click the 'Find Next' button.
Using Control + F to find word on a page