Sample Searches

Search 1: Identifying Varied Types of Sources

Search 2: Determining Source Accuracy

Search 1: Identifying Varied Types of Sources

Let's say you have been assigned to do a research project about a health-related topic. Fascinated by the constantly changing information given to us about the best approaches to preventing and treating diseases, you decide to see what disease is being discussed today.

Go to US News & World Report and choose the link to "Health."

On the day this search was conducted, there was a link called "After the Heart Attack." This link took you to an article entitled "How To Beat Back a Heart Attack? With Swift and Aggressive Counterpunching" by Avery Comarow.* This article offers some very simple ideas about how we can "attack back" at heart disease. But it's clear that the article is brief in its advice, stating things in simple, straightforward language that any reader can understand. It's what you would expect to find in such a publication. But you know there is more pertinent and scholarly information out there about heart disease.

(*Please keep in mind that following these links again may not take you to the same page, especially since sites for online periodicals tend to change constantly and articles are archived. However if you want to look for the article mentioned in this search you can go to the Advanced Search feature and search for the article by title or author's name-- "How to beat back a heart attack? With swift and aggressive counterpunching" by Avery Comarow. The search should give you the link "New data show heart attack calls for swift, all-out action (1/15/01)." Follow this link to the article.)

Go to the National Library of Health and click on the first link to "Health Information."

Choose the option to search "MEDLINE/PubMed. When prompted, type in "heart attack" as your search phrase.

At the next page you get a list of several thousand "hits." You can scroll down quickly to see that some of the articles given look much like the article from US News, like "The State of the Heart. If You Thought Cholesterol Was All You Had to Worry About, Better Think Again," and "By the Way, Doctor: I've Read on the Internet that People Having a Heart Attack Can Keep Themselves Alive by Coughing. Is this True?" but others seem more scholarly, and you decide to look at the article "Systematic, Immediate In-Hospital Initiation of Lipid-Lowering Drugs During Acute Coronary Events Improves Lipid Control." It's a dense article, and is clearly written for a scholarly audience, but you understand enough of it to find it of value, and it also validates the more mainstream article you looked at in US News.

More importantly, though, you can now recognize a general information article and a scholarly article easily by identifying a few key things, including the source the article came from and the language used in even just the title.

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Search 2: Determining Source Accuracy

You decide to continue with your research on heart attacks, and to assure that you have a good sense of what information is available, you search the Web to see what else is out there.

Using the metasearch engine Mamma.com, you type in "heart attack" and are given many hits.

On the day this search was conducted, there was a link titled "OraFlow Plus Oral Chelation for a Heatlhy Heart and improve..." From the research you have already done, you know that plaque is what clogs arteries and leads to a heart attack, so you want to investigate this further. What you find here is not an article, but rather an ad for a product that claims to do amazing things:

"Oraflow Plus® increases the production of enzymes which soften and dissolve arterial plaque, increasing the blood flow to the cells allowing all parts of the body to perform to peak performance.

Oraflow Plus® increases the production of antibodies necessary to control free
radicals and providing extra protection against pollution and the effects of smoking."

It sounds fascinating, but a little too good to be true. You should be suspect. This site offers no information about any research that's been conducted on this product and offers little substantial information about this product, except that the company that produces it has been publicly traded for 15 years.

While this site may be offering a very effective product in the battle against heart disease, it offers no substantive information that allows you to determine its validity. Stay away from such sites. Rely more on sources like those from US News & World Report and Medline for your research on this topic.

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