Web Search Savvy

Book excerpt: Web Search Savvy: Strategies and Shortcuts for Online Research provides readers of all skill levels with efficient search strategies for locating, retrieving, and evaluating information on the Internet. Utilizing her experience as a reporter working on deadline, author Barbara G. Friedman offers the most effective methods for finding useful and trustworthy data online, and presents these techniques in a straightforward, user-friendly manner. Anyone who uses the Internet for research will find much of value here, including techniques that harness the power of advanced searches to optimize search results, avoid advertising clutter, and locate low- or no-cost databases. Screen captures and diagrams illustrate the steps, rationale, and results to accompany various search strategies. This book emphasizes techniques that make the Web work for individuals rather than for advertisers, such as choosing the most appropriate search engine for the job and tweaking its advanced options to narrow a search and optimize results; identifying cost-free sources of online data; using creative approaches to locate information; evaluating the integrity of online data; and protecting the privacy of the researchers and the researched. Web Search Savvy is an essential resource for students, scholars, and practitioners in journalism and mass communications, and it offers practical and useful guidance for anyone researching information online.