Become a
Web Detective...

Do you have trouble locating resources on the Web? Does it take you "forever" to find what you need? Do the different Web browsers confuse you?

If you answered "yes" to any of the above questions, than this site will be very useful to you! Use this site to "become a web detective" and be able to locate resources and locate them quickly. Read the "Quick Tips" to learn general information that will help you navigate the Web, check out "Know the Facts" to find out which browsers would be the most useful in your search, and follow the "Guided Tour" to apply the tips in a real Internet search. -- Leslie Cohen

(1) Use and bookmark directories. Directories are comprehensive sites in a particular field which are often compiled by librarians and other Web-pros. These sites organize, categorize, and often evaluate many sites and link you directly to them. Teachers, students, educational administrators, and parents should bookmark Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators. It is a great place to begin any Web search! Also, Yahoo, in addition to being a search engine, is a Web directory compiled by people!

(2) Know which Web Browser to use. There are a number of Web browsers (or search engines) including Yahoo, Infoseek, Lycos, Excite, and AltaVista. The "Know the Facts" section below links you to a number of browsers and describes the differences between them so that you will know which would be the most useful for a particular search.

(3) Explore in your free-time! Tips are valuable, but familiarity with the Web is priceless! The more you use the Web, the better off you'll be. Remember to bookmark useful sites as you explore, so that you can access them more easily in the future.

(1) Know how to bookmark. Bookmarks are simply sites that you "save" and can reference easily in the future. I am using Netscape Navigator and have a "Bookmark" menu bar on my screen. Most likely you have "Bookmarks" in the menu bar at the top of your screen. AOL refers to bookmarks as "Favorite Places," so if you are not using Netscape bookmarks may be called something else. If you are using Netscape Navigator, to bookmark a Webpage, simply click on "Bookmarks" and scroll to "Add Bookmark" while you are viewing the desired page.

(2) Know the Web browsers and their functions. The following is a list of the major Web browsers or "search engines" that you can use. It is good to become familiar with them . . . some are good for general searches, while others are better for more specific information. Also, some can locate specific types of information such as the MathSearch browser. In addition, different search engines collect and organize information in different ways. Examine the descriptions below to find out which can be the most useful to you. Also, to answer more of your questions, click here for a helpful Kathy Schrock link!

This section is designed to take you on a guided search for a piece of information . . . Someone called PEF asking for Internet research and I performed this search for them. Let me take you through the steps of finding information about a person on the Web. Below I will guide you through two approaches to finding information on the same person. Often you will want to try multiple approaches in your Web searches. In addition, I'll show you how to contact the person we are searching for (one of the many advantages of the Internet!)

For our search, we want to learn about the first African American woman astronaut, Dr. Mae Jemison.

(1) Let's start with Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators. As I mentioned above, it is a great starting place for any Web search. It also demonstrates the value of bookmarking useful directories such as Kathy Schrock.

(2) Scrolling down Kathy Schrock's page, click on Science and Technology in the "Subject Access" section.

(3) Interestingly, there is a "NASA sites" link. Let's check it out.

(4) There are a number of sites that look useful, so let's start at the NASA Homepage.

(5) There are a lot of choices on this page. You may want to explore on your own or continue on with me. I suggest linking to Aeronautics which is the first item in the Strategic Enterprises column.

(6) Scrolling down the page, you can link to Education and Careers (a link that looks promising!). The Education and Careers page has a number of interesting links. The first link in the second column of links is Women of NASA. This is certainly what we are looking for, so let's go!

(7) From this page, we can link to Women of the World. This is an introductory page. From here we can link to Profiles of particular women.

(8) Under the Space Exploration category we find Dr. Mae Jemison, so let's click! Read on and learn all about Dr. Jemison. For more information, follow Search Strategy 2 below!

(1) Infoseek is a great search engine to start with, because we are looking for information about a particular person (just check out the table above!). Also, Yahoo is a good search engine, and searches there can link you to Encyclopedia Britannica's pages and other useful resources. If I did not know her name but was looking up information about black women astronauts or was trying to find out her name, I might have tried more general search engines such as Yahoo, Metacrawler, or HotBot. In those, I could use groups of keywords (called a keyword search) such as "black and woman and astronaut" or I might check out NASA's Website and search there! I have done this and been successful, so try this more advanced search on your own!

(2) Once in Infoseek, type "Mae Jemison" in quotes and hit the search button. This page is the page you should see. When I come to this page I scroll up and down and check out the site titles and even check the next page or two of titles (just click on "next 10" and "previous 10" to move back and forth among the pages!).

(3) Scrolling down the first ten choices, the bottom title "Mae C. Jemison Biography" caught my eye. I went to this page and found a great, brief biography of her life. Let's continue to explore...

(4) Hit the back button, so that you can return to the main list. I thought that the first page was full of interesting sites. (While the other pages seemed to contain sites in which Dr. Jemison was mentioned, she was not the focus of the other sites. Hit the "next 10" button to check it out for yourself!)

(5) Let's look through some of the other sites on this first page, going in order. The first site, Dr. Mae Jemison, provides a picture, biographical information, and an address where you can send Dr. Jemison a letter. This site is a great site for kids researching Dr. Jemison. The next site, Mae Jemison - Introduction, contains information about The Jemison Institute, Dr. Jemison, and the Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence. Exploring more in this site to learn about the Jemison Institute, I click on the Work icon and from their I click on The Jemison Institute. Check out what I found and explore the page!

(6) If you want more information about Dr. Mae Jemison you can go back and scroll the other pages in Infoseek and try other search engines using her names and keywords (See Step 1!)