Introductory guide to using the internet for theology

This guide is intended primarily to help students, who do not feel confident about using the internet, to get started. 

It is not a resource guide. In other words, it will not provide you with lots of links to useful websites. Rather, it aims to give you a generic overview, and to introduce you to the different ways in which you can search the internet to access resources. It also offers some search tips, and recommends an online tutorial for you to follow up in your own time.

What is the internet?

The internet is essentially a vast number of electronic networks connecting to an even larger number of resources and websites. Because it is so big, it is often difficult to find exactly what you want. And because there is no overall management of the internet, it is also difficult knowing what you can trust when you find it.

How do I search the internet?

To search the internet, you need a piece of software called a browser. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is one example of a browser. Once you have opened your browser, there are basically three ways to search the internet:

• type in the address of a known website
• use a search engine
• use an intermediary gateway

If you are searching for a specific website, and you know the address, you can go straight to it. For example, the web address of the Queen’s Foundation is www.queens.ac.uk. Your browser allows you to store an address, so you don’t have to type it out each time.

If you don’t know the address, or if you are searching for information rather than for a specific website, you will need help, either from a search engine or from an intermediary gateway.

Search engines

Search engines, such as Google, are the best option if you have a fairly specific idea of what you are looking for. You simply type in the search terms of your choice, and the search engine will retrieve websites which match your search terms. Search engines have different ways of ‘ranking’ the results of the search. The best search engines will put at the top of the list the websites which are most likely to meet your need.

Search tips

All search engines offer advice on how to make best use of their functionality, as well as explaining how they ‘rank’ the results. Don’t be put off by the Advanced Search option!

There are some search tips which are common to most search engines, and it is worth being aware of these. For example, use inverted commas to search for a phrase e.g. “queen’s foundation”.

Intermediary gateways

If you are looking for information on a subject of a fairly general nature, then a search engine such as Google will almost certainly give you too much. An intermediary gateway can help you in two ways:

• it provides some much-needed quality control, only selecting websites which have been checked and found to be of high quality
• it groups websites together under subject headings, enabling you to follow links from general headings to more specific ones to assist you in your search

There are many intermediary gateways, but here are two which are specifically aimed at assisting students of theology and religion:

• Intute Religion   
• Wabash Center

Intute Religion is funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for the benefit of the UK higher education community. The Wabash Center is hosted in the US.

It is also worth noting that Google has introduced its own academic search engine, Google Scholar, to assist the academic community. This search engine searches only scholarly literature to identify relevant papers, theses, books and articles.

Online Tutorial

Intute Religion also provides an online tutorial to help you navigate your way around the internet.

If you are an internet beginner, it is well worth spending some time at the beginning of your course of study finding your way round – it is likely to prove to be a good investment.

Advanced searching

Better ways of searching the internet are constantly evolving as search engine hosts strive to keep up with the array of resources becoming available and the increasing demands of internet users.

The following book is available for loan from the Librarian’s Office:

The advanced internet searcher’s handbook (2nd ed.) / Phil Bradley