Some of the widely used search engines, with their addresses are:

AltaVista

Google

Hotbot

Teoma

Yahoo, this resource is different from the others in that it retrieves sites that have been reviewed and classified into subject areas by experts

To conduct a search, select a search engine, enter your search terms in the search window of the search engine, and click on the "Search" or "Go" button or just hit "Enter." Each search engine has a set of rules for conducting a search, but most have a number of features in common. Also, each search engine has a "help" section that shows how to construct and carry out searches. Friends or a librarian can offer help as well. After initiating a search, the next screen shows a list of Web sites that match your search terms with a short description of each site. Examine the titles and select the first one you want to go to. Then, click on the title of the site. Once at the site, you can read and take notes as you would with a publication. Web searching, however, has a tremendous advantage over reading and taking notes from a printed publication. You can download content from most sites to a disk and then print the content out or later paste it into your report, without having to take notes or copy anything by hand.

Before leaving a site from which you have taken information, be sure to get all the information you need to create a reference to the site. See Box 4.5 for what is needed. Note that a reference to a Web site should also include the day you obtained the information. This is necessary because the content of sites change from day to day.

While the Internet clearly is a valuable resource for social researchers, users also need to recognize and be prepared to deal with its limitations.   In Help, we briefly describe some of the limitations of the Internet, particularly for users in developing countries.

Deciding on the final research question

By now you may have forgotten the purpose of reviewing the literature and that is to learn all you can about the topic or question you selected to study. The process of reviewing the literature can have one of several effects on the initial question selected for research. As a result of reviewing the literature, you may decide not to pursue your initial topic or question. In this case, you would have to start looking for a new focus for your research. Frequently, the result is to proceed but with a slightly different focus. Or, you may decide the original statement of the topic or question is still a suitable one and proceed to the design phase of your investigation.

For another view of the process of stating, researching, and selecting a research question, we suggest you visit:

Before the Inquiry: Scoping the Research Terrain, this Web site provides detailed guidance based on a six-step process, beginning with clarifying your question, conducting a literature review, noting patterns in what you find, obtaining the assistance of others in integrating and confirming what you have learned, and finally, synthesizing existing knowledge about the question you intend to investigate