Starter Tips for Internet Research

Doing Quality Research on the Internet

Other Major International Affairs Gateways

Also available for free download: PDF copies of my Internet research guides for International Business and American Foreign Policy.

• For those new to the Internet and its terminology, a good introduction is Learn the Net. The University of California at Berkeley posts an extensive tutorial at Finding Information on the Internet: A Tutorial. Excellent information on the history, characteristics, functioning, and use of the Internet is found at the large site The Living Internet.

• 21st Century Information Fluency Project-- Excellent set of tutorials, tips, exercises, games, "search challenges," and resources from the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy that include "professional development, tools and resources to develop the digital information fluency skills of educators and learners..."

• BBC's WebWise-- Excellent and thorough free online interactive tutorial on the use of the Internet, for beginners, from the British Broadcasting Corporation.

• The excellent Virtual Training Suite, from the UK,  is "a set of [subject-specific] online tutorials designed to help students, lecturers and researchers improve their Internet information skills. The tutorials offer self-directed learning, take around an hour each to complete, and include quizzes and interactive exercises to lighten the learning experience." Many subject matters and their key sites are featured.

• Laura Cohen, Web Support Librarian, University at Albany, SUNY, writes and posts very helpful and frequently updated Internet Tutorials on using and searching the Internet.

• The Ohio State University Libraries offer net.TUTOR, free "interactive tutorials on basic tools and techniques for becoming an effective Internet researcher."

• An excellent free, online tutorial from the University of Texas System Digital Library is the Texas Information Literacy Tutorial (TILT), "an educational Web site designed to introduce you to research sources and skills. The tutorial is organized in three modules which you can complete in any order. Each one should take you 30 minutes."

• The Library of the University of South Carolina Beaufort Campus posts the excellent and thorough Bare Bones 101: A Basic Tutorial on Searching the Web.

• The Spire Project is an excellent site by David Novak, a master online search specialist, to develop your general online research skills and to guide your specific online research in many fields.

• Bright Planet posts an extensive tutorial on harnessing the Internet to improve the quality of your search results, called the Guide to Effective Searching of the Internet.

• Puzzled by search engines and Web directories? Resolve your doubts and uncertainties at the following tutorials: Search Engine Watch, The Spider's Apprentice, Search Engine Showdown, and Pandia Search Engine News. Indiana University Bloomington Libraries have a helpful page, Internet Quick Reference: Searching the Web. About's Web Search explains search engines and techniques, and offers a weekly newsletter.  Recommended Web Finding Tools, from the San Diego State University library, thoroughly reviews search engines, subject directories, Web site reviews, and other finding tools.

• Search Engine Colossus and Search Engine Guide are comprehensive global master directories of local search engines for regional, country, or language-specific searches. Yahoo! provides country-specific, regional, and official government site search options. Google offers a comprehensive Language Tools Page to search in specific languages or countries, translate text, change language interfaces, or link to country-specific Google sites.

• Try Babel Fish from AltaVista and FreeTranslation.com to get the essence of foreign language text and web pages. Eurodicautom, an online version of the multilingual terminological database of the European Commission's Translation Service, gives translations of technical terms, abbreviations, acronyms, and phraseology among a dozen European languages. Dictionary.com translates text and Web pages between several languages.

• CompletePlanet searches the "Deep Web" (extensive areas of the Internet that most search engines miss) through scores of thousands of searchable databases and specialty search engines.

• Cornell University Library  presents tips on how to evaluate the quality and reliability of sources on the Web, which is a major concern for serious users.

• Virtual Chase--Legal Research on the Internet posts an extensive, helpful article on serious Internet research in many subject matters, Evaluating the Quality of Information on the Internet.

• "Academic and Scholar Search Engines and Sources" by Marcus P. Zillman, Executive Director of the Virtual Private Library and Internet search expert, is a helpful "research paper [in PDF] listing selected resources both new and existing that will help anyone who is attempting to find academic and scholarly information and knowledge available on the Internet." Also see his paper about online "Student Research Resources." Of special interest is his Searching the Internet page. Mr. Zillman also posts a list of his excellent and numerous White Papers on Internet research.

• Google Scholar "enables you to search specifically for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research... to find articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web." Many international affairs sources are included.

• Internet Scout Project of the University of Wisconsin provides reports of the online resources most valuable to the education community, as selected by librarians and educators.  Free e-mail subscription and very useful searchable archives.

• Intute: Social Sciences is a free information service created by a network of UK universities and partners. It is a fine searchable directory for access to high quality Internet resources in the social sciences, including in international studies. Their Virtual Training Suite provides "free Internet tutorials to help you learn how to get the best from the Web for your education and research."

• Librarians' Internet Index is another place to find carefully evaluated sites and is sponsored by the Library of California.

• Academic Info is a very good subject directory of Internet resources tailored to a college audience.

• A Pocket Style Manual by Diana Hacker is a widely-used college text with a website that has exercises and helpful guidelines on effective electronic research and proper documentation, as well as model papers.

• Many of the larger online publications are in Adobe Acrobat's Portable Document Format (PDF), rather than in browser-readable HTML. In order to download and view these files, you will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader, downloadable in several languages without charge from the Adobe Web site. Information on using PDF is at the PDFzone.

• Practice a foreign language or listen to foreign radio stations live on the Net with RealPlayer, downloadable in free and paid versions at the RealPlayer site. The RealPlayer itself has a station-finder feature that locates stations worldwide. Also enjoy the convenient vTuner for RealPlayer. Some stations use other types of online audio or video software, such as the Windows Media Player or Winamp. Select stations from the links found in the "International Radio and Television Broadcasts" section of this site.
 

• Diplomaticnet-- Specialized international politics portal, with directory, limited area search engine, Virtual Community forum, magazine, and more.

• Global Site-- From the University of Sussex, a fine "critical gateway to world politics, society, and culture," with online texts, reviews, global library, subject guides, and links. Note the very useful global library, a "reference collection of online texts for students of the social sciences. It links open-access texts from across the web."

• MSU Global Access-- From Michigan State University, an excellent site with a database of thousands of annotated links, country specific pages, maps, international news headlines, and more-- search simultaneously by world region or country and by thematic area.

• Political Science Research Online (PROL)-- Thousands of pre-publication professional papers are available for cost-free download here, many of them in international studies topics. This site is a collaborative effort of the American Political Science Association and a consortium of political science and related organizations to make conference, other preprint, and research center and institute papers widely accessible.

• Working Paper Sites of Political Science-- Many pre-publication professional papers in political science are available for cost-free download on this very useful U.S. site, many of them in international studies topics. The site also has annotated links to numerous similar sites around the world.

• Politics Gateway-- From the the Political Studies Association of the United Kingdom, a directory of thousands of mainly annotated links to political information sources on the internet, with a comprehensive search engine.

• One of the largest directories of Political Science Resources on the Web is found at the University of Keele (England) and is edited by Richard Kimber.

• The International Studies Association's Directory of Internet Resources covers a broad range of regional, functional activities, and issues sites. ISA also posts a free conference paper archive with full-text academic papers from recent annual conferences.

• Faculty Club-- From the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, numerous excellent free case studies and case reference material for use in teaching international relations and related subjects. Free registration is required.

• The U.S. Library of Congress site has many useful resources, including its Country Studies Series. Try the Researchers page (particularly "International Collections") and the Online Catalog. Note the excellent portal Global Gateway, which includes Research Guides and Databases and Portals to the World, "selective links providing authoritative, in-depth information about the nations and other areas of the world."

• The Netherlands Institute for International Relations ("Clingendael"), the leading Dutch international affairs research organization, posts an excellentannotated weblinks section.

• The Internet for Diplomats site is a "diplomat's Weblog," with a selection by career Mexican diplomats of "the best links on world affairs and diplomacy, as well as information and analysis on current international issues."

• Political Resources on the Net provides a wide range of international links "sorted by country, with links to parties, organizations, governments, media and more from all around the world."