We live in an information-saturated environment and spend far too much time searching, surfing, skimming, contributing, and organizing the information in our lives. We spend too little time immersing ourselves in reliable high quality information. We are often so buried in information and strapped for time that we grab information like it was fast food, without bothering to evaluate its quality. Finding Reliable Information Online: Adventures of an Information Sleuth uses stories or “information adventures” to illustrate the best approaches to searching for information and to help us develop our aptitude for locating high quality resources in a rapidly changing digital environment that is becoming proficient at monopolizing our attention with useless or unreliable information. This book is about taking charge of the search process and not handing over the reins to search engines like Google, Bing, or Yahoo to dictate what information we consume. Each chapter focuses on a quest for different types of information while digging deeper into the complexities of finding credible places to look for information and ways to think about evaluating it. As the Internet evolves and becomes more sophisticated, our strategies for finding and evaluating information need to evolve as well. The stories in this book range from investigating challenging research questions to exploring health issues and everyday life questions like finding a reliable restaurant or product review. These chapters go beyond the simple and more mechanical checklist approach to evaluating information, though these factors are also discussed.

Our information-saturated environment causes us to spend too much time searching, surfing and organizing the information in our lives. But finding reliable high quality information can be a problem. We are often so buried in information-- and strapped for time-- that we grab the search results without bothering to evaluate its quality. Stebbins shows you how to cut out unreliable information and find online information you can rely on.

Presents strategies for students to use to learn how and where to find reliable sources on the internet.

How to be a great online searcher, demonstrated with step-by-step searches for answers to a series of intriguing questions (for example, “Is that plant poisonous?”). We all know how to look up something online by typing words into a search engine. We do this so often that we have made the most famous search engine a verb: we Google it—“Japan population” or “Nobel Peace Prize” or “poison ivy” or whatever we want to know. But knowing how to Google something doesn't make us search experts; there's much more we can do to access the massive collective knowledge available online. In The Joy of Search, Daniel Russell shows us how to be great online researchers. We don't have to be computer geeks or a scholar searching out obscure facts; we just need to know some basic methods. Russell demonstrates these methods with step-by-step searches for answers to a series of intriguing questions—from “what is the wrong side of a towel?” to “what is the most likely way you will die?” Along the way, readers will discover essential tools for effective online searches—and learn some fascinating facts and interesting stories. Russell explains how to frame search queries so they will yield information and describes the best ways to use such resources as Google Earth, Google Scholar, Wikipedia, and Wikimedia. He shows when to put search terms in double quotes, how to use the operator (*), why metadata is important, and how to triangulate information from multiple sources. By the end of this engaging journey of discovering, readers will have the definitive answer to why the best online searches involve more than typing a few words into Google.

A lively introduction to historical methodology, an overview of the techniques historians must master in order to reconstruct the past.

Reading as a student demands new skills and new disciplines. Students must read. They must read to inform themselves about the subjects they are studying and to allow them to write assignments, reports and dissertations. Though most students can read fairly well, few can make as much or as efficient use as possible of the time they devote to reading for academic purposes. Many guides to study offer a pot pourri of techniques for improving reading skills. None gives as full a treatment of this essential and underpinning area of academic life as Reading at University. The authors believe that students must change both the ways in which they read and the ways in which they think about reading. This book offers effective and efficient strategies for fulfilling students' reading and study potential.

Choosing & Using Sources presents a process for academic research and writing, from formulating your research question to selecting good information and using it effectively in your research assignments. Additional chapters cover understanding types of sources, searching for information, and avoiding plagiarism. Each chapter includes self-quizzes and activities to reinforce core concepts and help you apply them. There are also appendices for quick reference on search tools, copyright basics, and fair use.