Web Searching

Paper – Web Searching

Google was the first search engine that I employeed. The initial search terms I used were "leadership and theory and research." The search terms were broader terms than I used the last assignment and was a suggested option by my mentor. This search yeilded 2,110,000 hits. This is obviously an enourmous amount of hits to review. However, since the first page of this search offered the link "Scholarly articles for learship and theory and research," limited the need to evaluate the validity of the sources from this link and therefore, appeared to be a good start.

The "Scholary articles" link yielded 1,420,000 hits. Browsing the first page of titles and annotations of the hits several pertinent options were apparent. However, when clicking on the first link and several links after that, revealed an abstract but to access the article a fee was involved to view the article. The request for payment led to a deeper process of locating the article within Northcentral University's Library database. However, the option was time consuming and decided to post-pone that research endeavor until the Google search options were exhausted.

Noticing large font links over to the right side, from the same search as above, a few sources links indicated an available PDF file. This was the case, and after a quick review of the files title, opening paragraph and conclusion I saved it to my desktop for future research. I began to consider how to import this file to Refworks to continue to build upon the references accumulated during this class. This led another search option: "scholar preferances." I was able to define the "Bibliography Manager" by setting up the preference to Refworks and save for future use. I then utilized the...

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...he material was becoming redundant but there were a few new articles of interest but were coming from the same sites I had previosly made notes to reveiw those sites in depth.

When I first began this process I theorized that Google would be the best search option and the most reliable. I still contend that this is a good search option but not completely convinced it is the best. I was able to access more non fee sites with Yahoo as well as resarch material that was of primarty and secondary sources. Therefore I have decided to complete my search engine evaluation on Yahoo. It was easy to use, the material presented was of quality sources and pertinent to my research. Yahoo has the ablity to take notes and attach it to the website and save for future use. The one feature I mentioned earlier that I would like for Yahoo in the ability to import directly to Refworks.