Chris Nolan's Presentation

This past Tuesday, Chris Nolan visited and provided the class both useful and helpful information regarding search engines, particularly Google. One aspect of Google that I found interesting was how some websites are not as credible as one initially believed them to be. For instance, one can use site: gov in order to find sites related to the government; however, government sites aren’t always safe. These sites may be bias, and government agencies can color the site contents in order to make an issue appear appealing. Non-profit organization websites (.org) are not always reliable sources, either. One must look carefully at the information provided by the site before using it for academic purposes.

There were a variety of other topics Chris Nolan mentioned that I found beneficial, especially the subject on how to narrow down your search. Google Scholar was something new that I thought could help me narrow my search down to more scholarly results. Chris Nolan also introduced the class to a database called Infomine, which I did not know existed until then. I am thankful that he has provided information that could help and aid me whenever I search for specific topics.