USING THE COMPUTER IN YOUR RESEARCH

Applied English 4

Group 5

9310002A Joshua 9310020A Zoe

9310009A Jessie 9310029A Shelly

9310012A Daniel 9310033A Peter

5

5A Computers and the research paper

Before: Typewriter

Now: Word

For example: word, excel, PowerPoint.

In some quarters, computer have done away with note cards.

In some school, by e-mail to traditional submission of hard copy.

To whole laborious businesses of research, they offer to full-text databases.

Computer Changed

5B The Internet

The Internet: a system of computers connected by a common protocol.

The World Wide Web: is part of Internet.

Connected Internet tools

1. Slow connections

Modem

Telephone Line

2. Fast connection

High-speed cable

DSL (digital subscriber line)

INTERNET CHANGED EXPLOSIVELY

In 1969, 4 host.

In 1996 there were more than 13 million.

In 2002, the Internet have more than 800 million users worldwide.

SOME INTERNET tERMS

FTP: File transfer protocol in Internet

HTML: it's a computer language to create website

HTTP: it’s a protocol rule of website

ISP: it is a company to offer users to connection Internet

Ex: Hinet, Seednet

URL: its address on the Internet

UNDERSTANDING INTERNET ADDRESSES

An Internet address or URL consists of three parts:

1. Protocol 2. Name of the host 3. Document path

EXAMPLE

Protocol Name of the host document path

http://tw.yahoo.com/news

5C ONLINE RESOURCES

Databases

Electronic journals

Online public-access catalogs

DATABASES

It’s a collection of data that is organized and stored electronically for easy retrieval.

Attractive feature - it can be searched in a variety of ways, usually by keyword, author or title.

Expanded Academic ASAP 1,204 periodicals 685 of them in full text

ELECTRONIC JOURNALS

They are scholarly journals or magazines that can be accessed via electronic transmission.

They are serial publications that can be accessed by a computer through the World Wide Web or via FTP, gopher, telnet, e-mail, or listserv.

Some electronic journals are online-only journals; some are online versions of printed journals.

The occasional drawback-limited search function.

ONLINE PUBLIC-ACCESS CATALOG (OPACS)

It’s a computerized online catalog of the materials held in a library or library system.

It’s an important tool in helping users.

ONLINE COMPUTER LIBRARY CENTER (OCLC)

Nonprofit

Membership

Computer library service

Research organization

5D RESEARCHING WITH SEARCH ENGINES

Search engine: a tool that using specific words via your topic to search the Web.

＊ Most common used search engines: Yahoo!, Google, Alta Vista.

BOOLEAN LOGIC

And: engine looks for sources in both two terms you find.

Or: engine looks for two or more terms.

Not: engine exclude the particular term from what you find.

FINDING a SEARCH ENGINE

For searching other, more specified engines for more sources.

Educational search engines

The search engines for nonprofit organizations- libraries, schools, government agencies. They usually reserve about scholarly sources.

Useful search engines

Manual: search directories and subcategories which have been compiled human.

Robotic: like a spider, software crawl the Web and scan the untold number of pages.

Metasearch: searches and compiles the top listings of other search engines.

Example:

Manual: Yahoo!

Robotic: Google

Metasearch: Metacrawler

Usenet, listserv, telnet, and gopher

☆ Internet : World Wide Web.→ useful for the typical researcher.

☆ Other parts of Internet: → Usenet, listserv, telnet, and gopher.

5e

5e-1 Usenet (User Network)

Created in 1979

Electronic bulletin boards

Posting a question or message to anyone else with a computer

Separate bulletin boards

→ discussion forums or newsgroups

Deja. Com (an Internet Company) acquired the systematic process

→ saving and indexing themes of discussions. (1995)

Google continued to refine the categories

→making them more accessible. (2001)

Main Categories in the Usenet

alt → unmoderated newsgroups

biz → business, economy

comp → computer

misc → discussions that match no other category

news → usenet-specific

rec → recreation

sci → science

soc → society-related

talk → controversial discussions about politics and others

Cont.

Cont.

k12 → education for students and teachers

Bionet → biology-research

bit.listserv  → newsgroups from bitnet-mailinglists

Clari → commercial stories

clarinet → commercial news service

gnu → GNU-related discussions of the Free Software Foundation (FSF)

It’s different from the Web ( advantages of Usenet)

Presenting information in an e-mail format

Without graphics (pictures) and sound

It’s a goldmine of information, especially on rare or esoteric topic.

grappling with difficult topic and could ask for help

Cont.

Has it’s own vocabulary

A must for beginner are the FAQs(frequently asked questions)

Easily to find the typical questions that newcomers ask

FAQs also could help you with your netiquette

5e-2 Listservs

A software which manages the mailing lists of discussion groups

Listserv service likens to show on which exchanges are done entirely by e-mail

for students, other sources are more useful than listserv.

http://tile.net/lists http://tile.net/ http://www.lsoft.com/lists/listref.html

5e-3 Telnet and gopher

Telnet→ a protocol for connecting computers on the Internet

Gopher→ an old-fashioned system of searching the Internet.

Now let’s see how to use them