Assignment Description: In Exercise #1, students will have an opportunity for applying search strategies while using search engines and observing and analyzing the results as they conduct their first search exercise. This will be a useful entry point as we explore “search basics.” Be sure you have completed the readings before doing Exercise #1 – especially the reading by the University South Carolina Beaufort Library (2014), “Searching with Boolean logic and proximity operators” and the two related webpages on searching, as well as viewed the lecture on search basics.

In Exercise #1, you will conduct searches by querying
yourself (hence, the “vanity” search) using TWO different Internet search engines (Google and one other search engine), record your results in a table and respond to questions to report your findings (in a Word document) and then submit it to this
Canvas

Important! You will conduct searches on your name
over a period of 3 days (for e.g., conduct searches on
day 1, skip a day, conduct searches again on
day 2). Be sure to
allow yourself enough time to complete the full exercise by the above due date including submitting your paper to the Canvas
Assignment AND posting your results to the
Discussion by the above date and time.

Exercise Instructions: (There are 5 parts to this assignment.)

Part 1. Go to Google (www.google.com) and do the following:

1. Search on your
first name (or a variation of it) and record the total number of hits in the
Table in your Word document (see below). Look at the first 30 results. How many of them are about you? How many other people with the same name did you find in the first 30 results?

2. Search on your
last name and record the number of hits that you get in the
Table in your Word document (see below). How many of them are about you? How many other people with the same name did you find in the first 30 results?

3. Search on your
full name and record the number of hits in the
Table in your Word document (see below). How many of them are about you? How many other people with the same name did you find in the first 30 results?

4. Search on your
full name within quotation marks, and record the number of hits in the
Table in your Word document (see below). How many of the ‘hits’ are about you? How many other people with the same name did you find in the first 30 results?

5. If there is a
middle initial in your name, repeat the search for the full name with your middle initial, within
quotation marks, and record the number of hits in the
Table in your Word document (see below). How many of them are about you? How many other people with the same name did you find in the first 30 results?

6. Refine the search on yourself using
Boolean operators, keywords, and/or phrasing to improve your search results (as covered in the lecture and readings).

7. Record your observations in a
Table using Word (shown below).
Tip: Copy-and-paste this table into a Word document.

Part 2. Repeat the same steps

using a different search engine
of your choosing on the
same date/time (see: The Best Search Engines of 2016 and select ONE of the search engines listed – be sure to scroll down to view the summary/highlights of each search engine on each ‘slide’). Prepare a similar table using Word (shown below).
Tip: Copy-and-paste this table into the same Word document.

Part 3. Try getting information about yourself using an
AI-assisted search interface. You can use either
Google Bard

Links to an external site.

or ”
The New Bing Search

Links to an external site.

” to conduct your search. Note that with an AI-based search interface, natural language is used instead of Booleans and special keywords, so you will need to craft the right statement to get results that (hopefully) provide information on just you, as little spurious information as possible. Try this 2 or 3 times to see if you get varying or successful results. Write down the types of statements you used to try and get results about
just yourself, and also copy down the plain language response the AI search tool provides before listing any results.

Copy and paste this table and record your results:

Part 4. Copy the Tables again and DO PARTS 1 2, and 3 again
TWO DAYS AFTER THE FIRST SET OF SEARCHES using the
SAME search engines as the first time.
Note: As results, you will have
6 tables in your Word document (3 tables in the first set of your searches, and 3 tables in the second set of your searches).

Part 5. Answer the following questions briefly (all answers together should fit on a single page in Word; please
insert the tables you have created
after this single page in the same Word document
and then submit to the Dropbox by the due date):

Note: Besides submitting your paper to this Canvas Assignment, you will also respond to these questions in the upcoming
Discussion and discuss your findings with your classmates.

Tip: Copy-and-paste these questions at the top of the same Word document and respond to them. Be sure to include the proper ‘heading’ at the top of the paper as found in the Course Policies.

1. What two search engines did you use to conduct the “Vanity Search”?

2. Based on your knowledge of the world, is your name a common one? How do you know this? Based only on the results of your search, is your name a common one? Did your search results produce any information (or ‘hits’) about yourself? If yes, what search queries produced the best results? Did you make any changes in your search queries using Boolean operators, keywords, and/or phrasing to your name to try to return at least one result about you (or more results about you) within the first 30 results? If yes, did your results improve? Please explain.

3. What differences in results did you encounter between the traditional search engines (Google, and other Search engine) vs, the AI search tool? Do you feel the AI search tool was easier, or more difficult, to get results than the traditional search tool? In your opinion, which was the better option for obtaining the needed results for this exercise?

4. Did you see any difference between the the first set and second set of search results when conducted on different days? What might account for any differences that you observed? Make reference to the reading(s), lecture, and/or video in your response to support your view, as appropriate.

5. What do you think accounts for any changes in the search results between the two search engines you used? What is the value, if any, in using two search engines to conduct a search? Make reference to the reading(s), lecture, and/or video in your response to support your view, as appropriate.

6. What have you learned about using different search engines thus far in terms of their functionality (similarities and differences) and their ability to retrieve information to satisfy a user’s (i.e., your) search needs (i.e., the original intent of the queries – to find information about yourself on the Internet)? Refer to the reading(s), lecture, and/or video to support your views in your response, as appropriate.