Search+for+Success

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 * Search for Success **

Successful searching will help you find the information you want, in the form you want, without wasting your time.

Using Google:
- be specific in your search - include file types if you are looking for a specific type of resource e.g. if you want to find an animation about respiration, don't just type in 'respiration' and hope for the best. Isolate the key terms you are looking for and save yourself time. Try [|"krebs cycle swf]" and see what is returned.

[|Click here] for much more information on refining your Google searches to get the best results. ([|http://www.googleguide.com/advanced_operators_reference.htm)]

Alternative Search Engines

 * [|www.blinkx.com] - this is a search tool that allows users to scan more than 30 million hours of audio clips and video files and these files are translated to text, making it possible for word-based searches to find online videos.
 * [|www.kartoo.com] - displays results as thumbnails of the web-page that users can click on to visit.
 * [|www.chacha.com] - invites users to ask questions by cellphone text or voice.
 * [|www.archive.org] - invaluable for searching for older information: headlines and pages from a decade ago.
 * [|www.grokker.com] - an image-based search engine with ways to narrow or expand your search.
 * [|www.touchgraph.com] - another image-based search engine.
 * [|SearchTogether] - a downloadable search engine that allows people on different computers to search together and share results

Primary Sources
In the Diploma Programme, you should be searching for primary sources of information - research papers and texts that are up-to-date, peer-reviewed and in-depth. When you reach university, you will be expected to use these sources as habit, and getting to grips with them now will be huge advantage. These types of sources are essential for the best grades in the Extended Essay.

**Springer Link**
A great place to start is [|SpringerLink] - the Athens* Authentication point. This search engine links to over 1200 journals published and even gives you the front page for free - which is where you can find the abstract, which may be enough for your purpose. Of course, if you need more information, you can purachase the article.

Here is a tutorial for researchers (that's you): http://www.springer.com/sgw/tutorial/htm/re_fun.htm

Have a go at using it now. Enter the search engine here: http://www.springerlink.com/home/main.mpx And now plug in some keywords of a topic you are working on. How many results are returned? How are they organised? Are they of any use to you? If you find it all too much, be more specific in your queries until you get to a number of results that is manageable.

**Athens is a massive database of articles and journals. Your university will have this, or something very similar and you will be able to access pretty much anything for free, as they will have subscribed to it.**

**Google Scholar**
[|Google Scholar] will search all journals and articles that have been peer-reviewed and are published online. Your best bet is to jump straight into the Advanced Search option to narrow your search: [|http://scholar.google.co.id][|/advanced_scholar_search?hl=en&lr=]

Much like SpringerLink, many of the results provide an abstract or summary. One added bonus, however, is that Google Scholar will also search free publications and you may be able to read whole articles for free.

An example here is the results returned for "[|causes spanish civil wa]r", with search parameters.

It's great - go and play with it!

**Free Journal Services**
Some services and journals are published for free, so no subscription is required. You can read the whole article online. They should be recent and peer-reviewed, so you can count on their reliability. These are often part of the [|Open Access] movement - communities built around sharing information.

Here are some examples:

**Sciences:**
- The [|Public Library of Science] is great. ([|http://www.plos.org]) You might want to search [|PLoS One] for general science, or [|Biology] or [|Genetics] for more specific information.

- [|JoVE] (the Journal of Visualised Experiments) is a good resource for videos of current reserach protocols. (http://www.jove.com/)

- The [|Journals of the American Physical Society] (http://publish.aps.org/) have many articles and reviews. Some of these can be read for free.

- [|PhysNet] (http://www.physnet.de/PhysNet/journals.html) has a huge list of free-access journals. You will need to visit each one individually, though as there doesn't seem to be a search function on this page.

**Theory of Knowledge: **
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Library:
It's the place with the books in.

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