Ninth Edition CoverGraziano & Raulin
Research Methods (9th edition)

Internet Explorer Tutorial

Welcome to the Internet Explorer tutorial. This tutorial should take 15 to 30 minutes to complete. With the simple basics covered in this tutorial, you will be able to use Internet Explorer to access the Graziano and Raulin website or any other website of interest to you.

NOTE: Throughout this tutorial, you will have two options to see examples of the procedures that are described in the text. The animation option walks you through each process, showing you every step. This is the best option if you have a high speed connection to the Internet. The page view option illustrates the process with a single downloadable image. This is the best option if you have low speed connection to the Internet, such as a dialup connection.

Specific Help

Starting the Program

We will assume that you either (1) have Internet Explorer on your computer or (2) will be downloading the most recent version of Internet Explorer using the procedures described elsewhere on this website. We will be describing how you open Internet Explorer. 

This tutorial is only relevant if you use a Windows-based computer, because Internet Explorer is the web browser program that comes free with the Windows operating system. The most reliable way to open any program on your Windows-based computer is to (1) click on Start (usually in the lower left hand corner of the screen), (2) click on All Programs, then find and click on Internet Explorer. 

If you click on one of the See It buttons below, you can view an animation of the entire process or an image that illustrates the process. In fact, the See It buttons access animations or images throughout this tutorial and throughout this website. (Note that you need to hit the back arrow key on the browser program you are using to return to this page following each animation.)

See It (Animation)

See It (Page View)

You will note that the Internet Explorer Browser program automatically opens the Microsoft Network website (www.msn.com) whenever it starts. This is how the program is set up when you first download it. However, you do not have to have to have Internet Explorer open this website. 

You can set Internet Explorer to open any website you want on first starting, or no website at all. My own preference is to have it not open any website, because I do not have to wait for the program to find and load the contents of a website that is probably not the destination that I want anyway. 

You change the default website that opens when the program first starts by (1) clicking Tools on the menu bar, (2) clicking on the Internet Options command, and (3) changing the home page to whatever home page you want. If you want the program to open to a blank page, just click on Use Blank. If you click one of the See It buttons below, you can see this entire process.

See It (Animation)

See It (Page View)

If you will be using the Internet Explorer browser frequently, you may want to move what is called a shortcut to either the desktop or the Start Menu. You move a shortcut to the desktop by (1) clicking on Start, (2) clicking on All Programs, (3) right clicking on Internet Explorer, (4) clicking on Send To, and (5) selecting Shortcut on the Desktop. The desktop is the screen surface when no programs are open. It is what you see when the computer first starts. Right clicking means clicking the right mouse button.  When you do this process, what will happen is that you will now see an icon for Internet Explorer on the desktop. You can start the Internet Explorer program by double clicking this icon, without the need for going to the start menu. Double clicking means pointing the cursor at the program icon and rapidly clicking the left mouse button twice. Moving a shortcut key for Internet Explorer to the desktop is illustrated in the animation below.

See It (Animation)

See It (Page View)

Having programs that you frequently use on the desktop is convenient for starting them quickly if you usually only run a single program at a time, so that they desktop is not covered by other programs that are running. If your desktop tends to be covered by other programs that are running, you can place frequently used programs into what is called the Start Menu

When you click the Start button, the programs in the Start menu are immediately visible, and you can open them by clicking on their icon.  To put Internet Explorer into this Start menu, you (1) click on Start, (2) click on All Programs, (3) right click on Internet Explorer, and (4) then left click on Pin to the Start Menu in the menu that opens when you right click. Right clicking means clicking the right mouse button. Click See It below to view an animation of this process. 

After you have completed this procedure, the Internet Explorer program will be in the list immediately available when you click on the Start Menu. You can even adjust where it appears in that menu using the drag and drop procedure that was described earlier.

See It (Animation)

See It (Page View)

Opening a Website

Now that you know how to start Internet Explorer, it is time to see how you access the website for the textbook. If you are reading this, you have already opened the textbook website.  Perhaps you followed the instructions in Appendix A, or maybe someone helped you to access the website. In this section, we will go over that procedure in more detail, so that you understand what you are doing and why.

The Graziano and Raulin website is on a computer operated by the publisher of your textbook. The address, or URL, for that computer is www.ablongman.com.  The address for the textbook website is www.ablongman.com/graziano7e. You can access the website by typing the URL address (www.ablongman.com/graziano7e) into the white box on the line just below the menu (the one with the Go button next to it). Then you can either hit the Enter key or click on the Go button to open the website. You can see that process by clicking the See It button below. 

Because this tutorial was written months before the website was setup, the result of this process in the animation below is that the website is not found. However, by the time you read this, the website should exist and be functional. In fact, the mere fact that you are reading this tutorial is positive proof that the site is now operational. 

See It (Animation)

See It (Page View)

Using Bookmarks to Make it easy to Return to a Page

Internet novices are often overwhelmed by the addresses (also called URLs) for web sites. The addresses look more complex than they really are, but there is no denying that they are a pain to type in. Get just one letter or number wrong and the browser program will never find your site. 

Using a bookmark for sites that you visit regularly makes the process of revisiting that location almost effortless. Bookmarks in Internet Explorer are called favorites. You can see the list of your Favorite sites by clicking on the Favorites button just below the menu line of the program. This will show your favorites on the right of the screen. Alternatively, you can see your list of favorite sites by clicking Favorites in the menu. 

As an example of setting up a favorite site, let's imagine that you are accessing the textbook website and want to bookmark it to make it easier to access later. Again, the website did not exist while this tutorial was being written, so we will illustrate the process of adding a favorite using the website for the fifth edition of this text. The URL for this website is www.ablongman.com/graziano5e. To bookmark this site, you (1) open it in Internet Explorer, (2) click on Favorites on the menu bar, and (3) click on Add to Favorites. Once you have done that, you can open the page in the future by simply clicking on the listing for the website in the Favorites menu. The process of marking a favorite site and returning to it is shown in the animation below.

See It (Animation)

See It (Page View)

The next time you want to visit the website, all you will have to do is start the Internet Explorer program and click on Favorites to find the website in your list of favorite sites. Note that most of the listings in the favorite sites list are directory folders that include several favorite sites or subdirectories. This directory structure is identical to the directory structure used in Windows, and it is very useful when you collect dozens, or even hundreds, of favorite sites all over the Internet. 

To organize favorite sites into directories and subdirectories, click on the Organize Favorites command in the Favorites menu. You can create new directories and subdirectories using the Create Folder command and you can move bookmarks into those directories using the drag and drop technique or the Move to Folder command. Drag and drop is accomplished by clicking the left mouse button and holding it down while you move the curser to another location with the mouse. When you release the left mouse button, the material you have been dragging will remain in its new location. The process of moving a favorite site into a folder is illustrated in the animation below.

See It (Animation)

See It (Page View)

Navigating Through HTML Documents

The beauty of HTML documents is that once you are in them, you can navigate easily through them by clicking on hyperlinks, which are links to other documents within the site or elsewhere on the Internet.  The beauty of hyperlinks is that all you have to do is click them to follow them to the new page. The website for this text is designed so that once you get into it, you never have to leave to get to some other part of the material. You can always access the key material using the Table of Contents on the left side of the screen. Each of the items in this Table of Contents is set up as a hyperlink, so clicking on it will take you to that part of the website.

Navigating through a complex document can be a challenge if you do not pay attention to where you are going. Unlike a book, in which one page follows another, a hypertext document allows you to read material in whatever order you want. You can click on links every time you come across them, but more likely you will click on a link only if you are interested in what that link has to offer. 

Unless you are real systematic, you may not see everything on a particular website, but there is nothing wrong with that. You should focus on the information that meets your needs, NOT what someone else thinks you should read. 

In the Graziano and Raulin Research Methods text, we have used the textbook to provide information that is essential to understanding the process of psychological research. On the website, we provide information that goes well beyond the text, only some of which will be of interest or useful to you. We leave the decision of what you will cover and how you will cover it up to you. What we try to do, however, is to create a well organized supplement so in which you can quickly find anything that you are looking for.

There are three primary ways in which you will enter a web site. They include:

  1. Giving the address for the site to the browser
  2. Entering the site through a link from another site (very common on the web)
  3. Entering the site from a search engine that identified the site as likely to meet your needs

We covered entering a site by giving the browser the address in the section on Opening a Website above. Entering a site through a hyperlink from another site is no different than navigating through a site by clicking on hyperlinks. In fact, one of the sections of our website (labeled Internet Links in the Table of Contents) contains links to other relevant websites. Clicking on those links takes you there without ever having to enter a URL. The beauty of the web is that it is just as easy to move from site to site around the world as it is to move from page to page within a site. 

Using a search engine to find sites that are likely to have the material you are looking for will not be covered on our website. These search engines not only identify potential sites, but also provide you with hyperlinks, so that you are just a click away. There is no need to write down or remember a complex address. In the animation below, we show you how easy it is to navigate by following hyperlinks.

See It (Animation)

See It (Page View)

Printing HTML Files

When you are reading a page of information that you want to print out for later reference, you select the File menu and the Print command from that menu. This will open the Print dialog box, which provides you with several options.  If you want a single copy of the entire document that you are looking at, click on OK. You can also request several copies or change the printer that the information is sent to if you have more than one printer attached to your computer.

See It (Animation)

See It (Page View)

Searching Within a File

In a long web page, it can be difficult to find a particular item by scanning the page. To make this task easier, use the Find (on this Page) command, which is under the Edit menu. In the example illustrated below, we are searching for the words "PowerPoint lectures" to help us find the information about that slide presentations.

See It (Animation)

See It (Page View)

Customizing Internet Explorer

Like most sophisticated programs, Internet Explorer allows users to customize the program to suit their needs. This is accomplished through Internet Options command on the Tools menu. The Internet Options command allows you to turn certain feature on and off by clicking on the name of the feature. 

For example, clicking on the general tab allows you to decide how long the browser will keep track of the the links you have visited. This directory of visited links is how the browser knows whether to print a link in the color that indicates the you have already visited it or another color that indicates that you have not visited that link. This is very handy to help you remember what you have seen, but it is also an electronic trail of your web surfing. If people wanted to see what you have been looking at online, they could use the database that remembers the pages you visited to spy on you. 

You can decide how long Internet Explorer will remember the pages you visited. You can also delete the memory of the visited pages at any time or arrange to have that information routinely deleted each time you close the Internet Explorer program. These procedures are illustrated in the animation below.

See It (Animation)

See It (Page View)