Web search for Middle School students: choose right keywords for an adequate web site retrieval

http://searchenginewatch.com

Educators don't have a problem to describe  keywords as significant words or phrases that identify the topic of a research. We teach students to put keywords in a search bar of a search engine, catalog or a database. However, Middle School students often complain that they have too many results and it's hard to find adequate articles. Librarians provide young adults with more specific recommendations to help them find relevant information.

Librarians suggest:

• Before conducting a research, students make a list of questions they try to answer and collect information for. Examine these questions and identify keywords.
• Relevancy of retrieved web sites depends on what words students have inserted in the search bar and in what order. A keyword headache brings different searches from the results produced by the phrase my head hearts. A keyword dentist retrieves distinct results from those that come as a result for a search for a tooth doctor .
•  Before they start research, students should think either they need facts or opinion and either they need to provide a variety of points of view. 
•  Are they collecting statistics, lesson plans, discussions?
•  Remind the students how search engines work: Web pages are tagged and described in metadata to make them searchable by search engines. If the words chosen by a researcher don't bring helpful web sites, we suggest that students use synonyms and related words .
• General keywords bring a great number of web sites while focused keywords will limit the number of websites, sometimes more than it is desired. Special terminology  retrieves highly professional articles.Using both types of keywords in the search bar is the best way to find relevant information.
•   It is recommended to use 5-7 keywords in the search session. Google brings web sites that contain the most of the keywords entered. 

Hopefully, these tips will help your Middle School students find relevant information and grow as web detectives.

Research Projects versus Report Papers.

Case Study:

In class, students work on a research project. They use information from multiple sources, take notes and cite materials following the MLA format. They turn their projects to the teacher... and the teacher is disappointed. Research papers look like encyclopedia articles or book reports. 

What is the problem?

Suggestions: 

Before the project is long underway, students examine several research papers. Their attention is drawn to the details that make research papers not a mere review of information found on a topic. A research paper is the result of an intense work and interaction with primary and secondary sources followed by an evaluation of these materials. A research paper is a composition in which students express their personal ideas and points of view and support them by information found in reliable sources.

In addition to presenting a summary of arguments of other authors on the topic (Report), students analyze, examine, discover and revise facts, theories and applications (Research) through a series of steps (Research Process) in order to develop their own ideas and express them in a form of a product. 




You may decide to "apply" knowledge and focus on creating a product. Then, your learning will grow along making and presenting it to the audience.

Keywords:

Primary Sources - are information "collected directly from the real world". They include interviews, surveys, observations, analysis and ethnographic research (Purdue OWL).

Secondary Sources as opposed to primary sources are articles, books or websites that interpret primary sources. These sources are "works of synthesis and interpretation based upon primary sources and the work of other authors" (Teachinghistory.org).

Research – is a diligent and systematic inquiry or investigation into a subject in order to discover or revise facts, theories, applications, etc. Synonyms: investigation, analysis, fact-finding, examination, scrutiny (Webster).

Report - is a review of what others have written about a topic, given a spoken or written account of something that one has observed, heard, done, or investigated, presenting a  summary of arguments of other authors on the topic. Synonyms: describe, communicate, publish, publicize.

Project - is an individual or collaborative enterprise that is carefully planned to achieve a particular aim (Oxford Dictionaries Online)

Research paper reviews the materials written about a topic, draws one’s own conclusions and argues his/her point.

Research Process – is a series of steps, which make up research from the development of an idea to the completed research paper.