Research Log

My final question in my research was Earth's gravity. At first I just searched the word 'gravity' by itself, but there were too many results and I had a broad variety of answers. So I narrowed my search by being more specific by using phrases such as "gravity and how it works on earth." This worked, but I still had varied results. Some answers were too broad, while others gave inadequate answers and explanations to my search. I then tried omitting connecting words such as 'the' and 'on.' I also entered the word 'and' into my search as we learned in class on Friday, this will provide more detailed and relevant answers. This technique helped me in my search, however I still had to many results. So that's how I got my final search of Earth's gravity. This was the most specific and helpful way to arrange my words. I got fewer results, but these results were more beneficial and relevant to what I was searching for. I feel that after my final search, I had just enough results to accommodate my question. I had plenty of results in the end, and a majority of them were very helpful to my inquires. I think that any number between 1,000-50,000 is adequate. If you only have a three digit number as your number of results, you may not have creditable sources.If you have results in the millions, you may have too many generic answers. Some of my results helped me out, and helped me to understand my question. Whereas other results only confused me, and created even more ideas in my head, and ultimately more searches. So I guess even the confusing results helped me out in a sense. Boolean operators helped me to refine my search and to find more specific answers to what I was looking for. By entering words such as 'and, or' and also 'only' you get results that aren't generic, but more precise to what you are looking for. As we discussed Friday, databases are smart devices, and by using Boolean operators, a database will give you more clear-cut results.