PREPARING FOR YOUR RESEARCH

Using computers to find information sounds easy, and often it is. However, you will also have access to much more material than you could ever read, and the information you need may be buried under a lot of stuff you don't care about. Researching with computers can be successful only when you understand how the information is organized as well as what computers can and cannot do.

What Computers Can and Cannot Do

Whether you are searching on CD-ROM or on the Internet, search tools (computer programs that locate sources of information) will ask you for a subject area or for search terms (keywords). Researching programs are user friendly, so you'll often get plenty of information quickly. However, you still need to be creative--in how you tell the computer what to look for.

Computers Can	What You Must Do
Scan a vast number of documents rapidly	Determine the best words to use for scanning the documents
Narrow your search	Articulate the limits of your search
Allow you to download files to use in your report	Save the files on your disk; record bibliographic information
What Computers Cannot Do	What You Must Do
Find something listed under a different term	Use synonyms; suggest more general topics; be creative in phrasing yoursearch