The STAIR method can be very useful when trying to locate information on the web. There is so much available, and it is so loosely organized, that you can easily become disoriented if you do not follow some kind of structured technique. Let's look at an example:
Dan and his brother get in an argument after viewing the Disney Movie "Beauty and the Beast." In particular, Dan insists that the line in the song "Kill the Beast" that starts "screw your courage to the sticking place" is a Shakespeare quote. His brother asks "Oh yeah, what play, act, and scene?" and leaves feeling triumphant. Dan decides to use his Internet skills to find whether the quote is listed in any Shakespeare plays, and if so, where the quote occurs.
He starts by firing up his web browser. Dan begins by clicking on the net directory button of his browser, since he knows he's going to have to search to find the reference. Dan likes Yahoo, and he thinks he remembers seeing a section on literature there, so he decides to click on the Yahoo symbol.
When the Yahoo screen comes up, there is no Shakespeare section, but he does see a section on Arts and Humanities. That sounds promising, so he clicks on the word 'Humanities.' He immediately sees the word 'Classics' and decides "Hey, Shakespeare is considered classic literature, isn't it?" He presses the button and finds a page full of references to Ancient Greek and Etruscan material. Fascinating, but not Shakespeare. He hits the 'back up' button to get back to the humanities page. He looks more closely at the topics available. "Oh, "he says, "there's a literature link. Looks a bit more promising." He clicks on it.
Within the literature section, he sees a link for authors. He clicks on it, and sees a link for playwrights. This is looking promising indeed! As expected, there is a link to Shakespeare from here. He clicks it.
There are a number of interesting links here, including a 'Shakespearean Insult Generator.' He is very tempted to look up the Shakespearean insults so he can call his brother an appropriate name later, but he decides to press on. He knows that the page he is currently on will be stored in his history list, so he can always come back. He sees a link called indices, so he clicks on the link. There are two listed, and one is in German, so he decides to try the other one, titled 'Mr. William Shakespeare on the Internet.'
This is a beautiful page, put together by someone who obviously adores Shakespeare and technology. There are a number of interesting sites here that tempt Dan, but again he decides to persevere and concentrate on finding his text. One link that really catches his eye is called 'Search Engines' The accompanying text explains that the link leads to 'a collection of links to search engines along with a helpful article on how to use them.' He clicks here, and ends up at a page that has links to Yahoo, InfoSeek, and other web search programs. Essentially this would be starting over! (Ooops!) He doesn't worry, but backs up a page and tries again.
This time he sees a page called 'Shakespeare the Works.' On this page, he sees a link called 'MIT Shakespeare Home Page' It claims to have a Shakespeare search engine. Perfect! He clicks on this search engine link. He sees a page that allows him to type in any text in a search keywords box and select which work to search from. He chooses the "all the texts" option, and types in "screw your courage to the sticking place". Nothing happens until he presses the "submit" button, but when he does, he gets a page that says:
MACBETH
Act 1, Scene 7 But screw your courage to the sticking-place, [text]
Cool!! The phrase [text] appears to be a hyperlink, and he clicks it to see the context of the quote. It turns out that the phrase occurs near the end of Scene 7. Lady MacBeth says it as she is convincing MacBeth to kill Duncan.
Dan prints out this page, then checks the history list to find the "Shakespearean Insults" page. He takes the printout of the page with Lady MacBeth's quote on it to his brother and calls him a "mammering rude-growing mammet".