Research in Counseling: Basic Outline

	RESEARCH IN COUNSELING: BASIC OUTLINE Prepared by Kathryn Reynolds Education & Human Services Librarian

INTERNET SEARCHING

Beginners: Try a subject guide to the Internet like Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.com/); select "Social Science", and under it, pick "Psychology". "Counseling & Therapy" is a good choice in this category. Other relevant categories are "Society & Culture", "Health", and "Education". When you find an interesting site, click on the hypertext link to open it up. Then you may read, print, or download the document. Another good Internet subject guide is About.com.
Experienced Searchers: Use Internet search engines to find your concept or key words. Take advantage of the Help screens and Advanced Searching features whenever you have a more complicated or difficult search. Remember, you will usually find the most relevant information within the first few screens of results in your Internet searches. Some search engines even rank or assign numerical ratings to the most relevant information retrieved.
1. Single Search Engines/Indexes/Directories
  To make the Internet easier for users to navigate, developers created meta-indexes and search engines to pull up words or lists of documents. Searches on these tools vary depending upon their speed, simplicity, efficiency, and access to information. Some of the most popular search engines and indexes include:
  About.com - http://www.about.com/
  Alta Vista - http://www.altavista.com
  Ask Jeeves - http://www.aj.com/
  Excite - http://www.excite.com
  Fast Search - http://www.alltheweb.com
  Google! - http://google.com/
  GoTo.com - http://www.goto.com
  HotBot - http://www.HotBot.com
  InfoSeek - http://www.infoseek.com
  Lycos - http://www.lycos.com
  NBCi.com - http://www.nbci.com/
  Northern Light - http://www.northernlight.com/
  WebCrawler - http://www.webcrawler.com
  Yahoo - http://www.yahoo.com
2. Multiple Search Engines
  To search more than one search engine/index simultaneously, try one of these:
  Dogpile - http://www.dogpile.com
  MetaCrawler - http://www.metacrawler.com
  Metasearch - http://www.metasearch.com
  Profusion - http://profusion.com
  SavvySearch - http://www.savvysearch.com/search/
  Starting Point - http://www.stpt.com
3. When You Have a URL (Universal Resource Locator or Internet address):
  Delete the address in the Netsite or Location line at the top of the page, type in your own URL, and press Enter. Pay special attention to case, spacing, & punctuation.
4. Internet Search Tools
  This is Wright State University Libraries' Internet Page. It includes information about links to search engines, Internet subject guides, meta searchers evaluation services, Internet portals, & instruction guides.

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