Practical 4 & 5

Researching for information

This week, I've learnt to search effectively and evaluate different search engine's capabilities in returning me results that suits my searching needs. I have been using google and for a long period of time and today is my first time that come across metacrawlers. It is actually a search engine used to search the infomation from other search engine. Hence, it does not has a database on its own. Also, this is my first time using the yahoo's directory.

Ms Farida has also taught me to use boolean operators in my search phrase to make my search result more relevant by using OR operator, NOT operator or AND operator.

OR – expanding the search, include either of the phrases
NOT – restricting the search
OR – expanding the search, include either of the phrases

My topic is to discuss the impact of online gaming on youth. The table below is the keyword that I've used in the search.



The search phase that I've used to search for my information is ->Impact of online AND gaming on youth.

About Comparison and Evaluation on search effectiveness

2 characteristics that make all 3 search facilities similar or different from one another is the numbers of hits that returns (results) and also the relevance of results. In my case, google returns me with 9 450 000 results, yahoo subject directory 844, metacrawler meta search engine returns me with 80. As usual, the most top result in the search result list is always the one which hits the most keywords that I've entered. Doesn't matter the number of hits each search engines return, as long as it satisfy the user needs, it is considered as the best. The weakness of the search engine is that the lack of ability to filter relevance of results.

Google is the best search facilities that meets my searching needs. It returns me the results of the pros and cons of online gaming which will enables me to analyze and see the impact of online gaming on youth.

Labels: Practicals