About.com Guide to Online Research: Navigate the Web—from RSS and the Invisible Web to Multimedia and the Blogosphere (About.Com Guides) (Paperback)

~ Wendy Boswell (Author)
Key Phrases: numbers example search, search toolbox, social bookmarking sites, Online Research, World Wide Web, United States (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Do you find your Web searches frustrating and time consuming? If you're like most, you use the Web for research--whether for school or work or to find essential healthcare information. But with all the ads and questionable articles getting in the way, it can take days just to find one reliable source! That's where The About.com Guide to Online Research comes in.

Let industry expert and the About.com Guide to Web Search, Wendy Boswell, lead you through essential tips and tricks to streamline your searches. With this authoritative guide you'll learn how to:

• Choose the right search engine
• Google like a pro
• Evaluate sites for accuracy
• Dig deeper with the invisible Web
• Revolutionize searches using RSS
• Find relevant multimedia

From Boolean searches to mining the blogosphere, this guide is packed full of information for anyone who has ever sat staring at a search engine wondering where do I begin? With Wendy and About.com, you'll be clicking your way to information that is accurate, timely, and relevant in no time!

About the Author

Wendy Boswell, the About Guide to Web Search, specializes in Web search strategies, hacks, and tricks. She's coordinated a successful eBay business, overseen a nonprofit community Web site, did technical writing work for a CAD company, and wrote a beginners' guide to search engine optimization for Register.com. She is currently the weekend editor for LifeHacker.com and writes for b5 Media. She lives in Portland, OR.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Adams Media (December 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1598695037
• ISBN-13: 978-1598695038
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #674,829 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Even experienced users will learn tips for getting around on the Internet!, May 20, 2008

By	Blaine Greenfield "eclectic reader" (Belle Meade, NJ) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I thought I was pretty good when it came to getting around
on the Internet, but was I ever pleasantly surprised to learn
that I could still learn a great deal . . . and did by reading
THE ABOUT.COM GUIDE TO ONLINE RESEARCH by Wendy Boswell.

You'll also learn, too, regardless of your level of computer
sophistication . . . the material is very readable and
oh-so-informative . . . for example, to find the weather for
where you live, just go to the google website and type-in
weather: then your five-digit zip code . . . you immediately are
taken to a very visual listing that will provide all the information
you need by just looking at it (and not having to click further).

You'll get many tips that I've never seen elsewhere; e.g., this one
deals with how to deal with bibliographies:

There's EasyBib. a free automatic bibliography
composer; Cornell University Library's excellent in-depth article on how
to prepare an annotated bibliography; and writer Diana Hacker's informative how-to tutorial . . . all the specific web citations can be found in the book.

And you'll also find websites galore on such topics as finding crime
statistics, weird news, comparison shopping, job hunting, specific
diseases, and everybody's favorite, time wasting.

Lastly, if such terms as "blogs" and "RSS feeds" still throw you,
you'll no longer need to fear them if you just spend a little
time this most informative guide . . . I'd tell you more, but
it would take away from the time that I still want to spend
on trying just some of the things I've learned from Boswell's book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great help for all skill levels, March 23, 2009

By	BLW (CA United States) - See all my reviews

Highly recommended, even though the title is a bit misleading in that it seems to emphasize "research" when in fact the book is more of a tutorial (for all levels of experience) on many current web tools and practices. Given that every page has numerous url's (web addresses) as tips to find good sites, a few pages make the price a bargain. Easy to read, and you can start anywhere. Or use the index for the item you're interested in and chances are you'll immediately find something useful.

5.0 out of 5 stars Kicken Book, July 18, 2008

By	dboz555 "dboz555" (OR ,United States) - See all my reviews

Great book, if you are eager to make your web searching more productive this is the book for you.