![[flashlight]](gifs/flashlight2.gif){kind=small}
Search engines are an indispensable tool for finding information on the World Wide Web. However, different search engines use different search procedures and may produce radically different results. This assignment is designed to familiarize you with several search engines. The report you write will in turn give guidance to your fellow humanities students in selecting and using search engines.
1) Choose a humanities-related topic about which you want to find information. Some sample topics: Toni Morrison's most recent novel, Paradise; Verdi's use of Shakespeare in his operas; feminist utopian fiction; the controversy over Robert Mapplethorpe's art; Alan Sokal's postmodernist hoax; the topic of a recent paper you wrote for a humanities course (or one you're about to write). Select three or four keywords to use in your search. Try to make the keywords as specific and distinctive as possible: "Wordsworth" rather than "romantic poet," "dachshund" rather than "dog."
2) Select three of the following search engines:
3) Give exactly the same keywords to all three search engines. Take notes on the response you get from each (speed of response, number of links provided, how ordered, etc.). Then read and apply whatever instructions the search engine site provides to refine your search so as to produce more useful results (these instructions may be called "Help," "About," "Tips," etc.). Again, take notes on what you do and what kind of response you get from each search engine.
4) Write a paper in which you describe the steps you went through and assess the three search engines you've used in terms of the number of links provided, the relevance of the links to what you were looking for, the ordering of the links, etc. (Be sure you make it clear what topic you were seeking information about, and what keywords you gave to the search engines.) Did the links come with descriptions and/or dates? Did some search engines provide more current information than others? Did some provide more dead links than others? Based on your experience, what do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of the three? Which one did you find most useful in finding relevant information?
Your typewritten, double-spaced paper will be due Friday, March 31.
If you have questions, please don't hesitate to contact me via e-mail. Here's how..
Return to ENGL 348 Schedule of Assignments.
Return to Joan Korenman's home page 