Module 2:
Searching
Government Web Sites (Part 1)
Why search
government Web sites?
Government agency Web
sites provide public access to government information such as
tax forms, census data, statistical information such as the consumer
price index, contact information for elected officials and much
more.
Tips and techniques
for a successful search:
Unfortunately, each
Web site is different and works in a different way. However,
each site will have a help area to guide you in your search.
If you do not know where to get started, begin with USA.gov.
USA.gov
USA.gov
(http://www.usa.gov), the U.S. Government's official web
portal offers multiple ways to retrieve government information.
One search method is
by topic. Let's say you are researching Internet fraud as
a topic for a paper.
From the first USA.gov home
page under Information by Topic, scan the list of available
topics. The section description for Consumer Protection includes
the word "scams" which provides a clue that
this might be a good place to look first.
Click on the link for Consumer
Protection, to go to an alphabetical index.
Clicking on the letter "I" will
take you directly to the listing for Internet fraud.
Click on the link.
What did you find there?
Another nice feature
about USA.gov is the ability to search for information
in multiple ways.
 |
If you know the agency you need,
use the A-Z Agency Index. |
This will take you to a complete alphabetical listing of all
U.S. Government agencies. If you knew information on Internet
Fraud was going to be found at the Web site of the Federal
Trade Commission, but didn't know the address for the agency's
Web site, the A-Z agency index is an easy way to get there.
However, most government information on a particular topic is
going to be produced across multiple agencies. By going to Cross
Agency Portals (http://www.usa.gov/Topics/Cross_Agency_Portals.shtml)
you will be taken to an alphabetical index of hundreds of topics.
Using the previous example of Internet Fraud, you could
check the listings under the various Consumer headings
for more information on the topic.
If you are still unsure of where to begin your search, you can
search by keyword in the search box in the upper right
hand corner of the screen.
The disadvantage to this search is, that if your search terms
are too general, you will retrieve many irrelevant documents.
Now let's look at another government information portal, GPO
Access.
Module
2