How to search on internet?

Dr.Rizwan Naseer
DS-Research
Shift from manual search to digital search
Relationship between search and research

• A Systematic and organized effort to

investigate a specific problem that needs a
solution
• An act of finding something
• Looking for some data to conduct further
research
Internet, surface, deep, dark
How to search on internet? A challenge?

5 billion results
• Search Engine Optimization(SEO)
• When gauging the amount of content
dedicated to a specific topic, you can quickly
filter out 90% of simple mentions by using
some of then techniques of searching
24 .9 million

6 lacs
Searching some site
You can do a general search and
quickly check if your indexed pages
match up with your own database.
PAF: DAWN News
Filetype:

Filetype:pdf
Filetype: tells Google
to return only results
of, you guessed it, a
specific type of file. It
is useful when looking
for research, which is
often in PDF or other
document file formats,
rather than HTML.
Related: is an operator that helps you find
sites related to a specified URL
 “” (Quotes)
Putting your search term in quotes initiates an exact
match search for that phrase
• $/€
• This operator helps you search for products by
price.
• Example - iPhone 8 Plus 400$
• #..#
• Putting two dots between two years creates a
Google search command for results that fall within
that year range.
• Example - ted talks 2016..2020
• Sometimes the best ideas come to us at the
worst times, and by learning to do the basics
with only Google, you have the ability to
instantly check & improve your SEO from the
comfort of your search engine
Research Methods
 Identify the knowledge gap
4

• What gap exists particularly on the topic you want

to investigate and that gap will be determined by
reading literature already published by various
scholars(Bruning, R., & Horn, C. (2000))
• E.g. Cyberwarfare has become another war
theatre between states you will read to know that
gaps like a lot has already been published but I
want explore Why was the US election
manipulated by Cyberattacks?
Types of Data in research
 6
Data Collection
• Primary data is data that is collected by a researcher from first-
hand sources, using methods like surveys, interviews, or
experiments. It is collected with the research project in mind,
directly from primary sources
• Availability of the data is another challenge
• Secondary Data: There are several types of secondary data.
They can include information from the national population
census and other government information collected by Statistics
Pakistan. One type of secondary data that’s used increasingly is
administrative data. This term refers to data that is collected
routinely as part of the day-to-day operations of an organization,
institution or agency.
 11
Formulating a research question
• Formulation of a research question, the thing you would like to
research on? Your research question should be;
• Not too broad
• Clear and simple
• It is a question not a statement
• Question should reflect relevance with the topic
• This research question formulation will be based on the literature
review, some already have done research but your research is
going to add up to more in that existing body of knowledge.
• If I am eager to know “What are the main challenges for
Pakistan’s Space Program to catch up with India”?
 Literature review 7

• Literature refers to a collection of published

information/materials on a particular area of research
or topic, such as books and journal articles of
academic value. However, your literature review does
not need to be inclusive of every article and book that
has been written on your topic because that will be
too broad (Denney, A. S., & Tewksbury, R. (2013))
• Research published by renowned publishers and by
celebrated scholars is considered as credible. Readers
read and cite that research.
 Purpose of literature review
• It helps identifying gaps in the existing
literature
• It helps finding data supporting your
main/argument
• It helps knowing your opposing argument that
you eventually can address with counter-
argument
• It’s never pick and drop lines from literature
Qualitative and Quantitative Research
Quantitative Data analysis softwares
Qualitative data analysis Software
 How to cite while doing research?
• Microsoft Word(reference method)
• Google Scholar (picking reference )
• EndNote
• Mendley