Overview

The Internet is an electronic connection to a huge fund of information and services. The World Wide Web is a part of the Internet and was designed to make it easy for millions of computers to exchange data that include text, video, graphics, animation, and sound. Perhaps you're writing a research paper. How can you use the Internet to gather information on your topic?

First, you need to understand how Web sites function. Each Web site you visit has a unique address, or URL. When you type a URL in the address bar of your browser, you virtually travel to that Web site. Once you've reached your destination, you may need to navigate through many pages of information using hyperlinks. Hyperlinks, when clicked on, take you to a related Web site or to a new page in the site you are on. If you have a question or comment about a Web site, you can usually send an e-mail to the site's Webmaster, who is in charge of building and maintaining the Web site.

Of course, start your search by accessing the Internet and the Web using a computer, a modem, an Internet service provider (ISP), and a browser. Then, using your browser, or the software program that displays Web pages, find your favorite search engine. Search engines allow you to look for information on the Web by searching for keywords, or words or phrases that describe your topic. Or, maybe you will want to use a metasearch engine, which retrieves records from several search engines at once. It's a smart move to use the Boolean logic commands AND, OR, and NOT to expand or narrow your search.

Now you've found some sites on your topic, and you know how to navigate through them. So, ask these important questions about each site that you visit: Who created this Web site? Is the information up to date? Can the information be verified? Does the site refer to other reliable sources for similar or related information? Does the text contain typos and other mistakes that make you suspicious about its reliability?

Remember: if you decide to use information on a site, you must cite the Web site as your source. If you cannot find a reliable source on the Internet, you can access information from CD-ROMs and DVDs, which store information electronically and are accessed with a computer.

As you probably know, the Internet has other fun and useful features. Yet, using e-mail, posting to message boards, and subscribing to newsgroups all require you to follow the basic rules of e-mail etiquette, or Netiquette. Knowing and observing these rules will make these activities more pleasant and useful to you and others. Also, not everything about the Internet is helpful or fun. Sometimes computers get viruses, computer programs that invade and damage your computer system by means of a normal program or e-mail message, and sometimes systems are hacked through the Internet. To avoid viruses, use virus-protection software and don't open attachments or messages from people you don't know. A hacker is a computer criminal who may steal valuable data from your computer; so never give your login or password to anyone.