The Internet has opened up a huge amount of information to anyone who looks for it. The challenge is to find information that is worth your reading and using in your research. Learn how to use search engines efficiently. Find a few that you can master and feel comfortable with. Pay attention to the sites that you find through subject directories, search engines, and web crawlers. Some may be commercial sites, rather than scholarly sites. Some of the information may be biased, and you need to learn to recognize that bias before using the information that you find on them. Some may be created by individuals who do not have much expertise. In short, it is essential that you evaluate every source that you find, even print materials in the library.

Note: Many search engines are providing an alternative to Boolean searching by providing "advanced searching" methods. We recommend that you investigate the advanced search process for each search engine if you would like to narrow your searches to make them more focused.

Note also: New domain names have been proposed and may be available at the time you are reading this. Here are the proposed new domain names:

.aero ------- an aviation group
.biz ---------- a business (supplementing .com)
.coop ------- a cooperative such as a credit union
.info --------- anyone may use this for an informational site
.museum -- a museum
.pro ---------- a certified professional, such as a doctor or special consultant

When you find sources you want to locate in the future, use the Bookmarking capabilities of your Web browser. This exercise asks you to practice using those features.