Research Help

Internet Searching

Tips by Elaine E. Buch

The WWW, World Wide Web, has become the most important technological development for education. The Web is just one part of the Internet. The lists and information in this section address only the WWW. The explosion of sites, search engines, and the great quantities of data call for some basic skills and organization to be able to locate relevant information. Key tools for using the Web include:

Learning to Search,
Evaluation of Information,
Search engines,
Directories,
Meta Search Engines
More Tips.

Learning to Search: By understanding how to perform a sophisticated search, the chance of finding what is needed is increased. Most search engines allow you to define your search criteria in specific ways, but all functions are not the same. Use the help screens to learn about the specific engine. Take time to learn one or two in depth. The Spider’s Apprentice and other teaching guides will provide more help.

Spider’s Apprentice:

http://www.monash.com/spidap.html

provides tips, tutorials, and links on how and where to search.

UC Berkeley Teaching Guides: http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/FindInfo.html

provides advanced lessons on how to search, when to use which tools, and learning advanced techniques.

Kathy Schrock’s Brushing up on the Internet:

http://discoveryschool.com/schrockguide/brush/brush.html provides several lessons designed for students that are basic.

Search Engines:

They have become "portals" or a hub of information tailored to individual interests and needs with links to all kinds of services. The concept is to make it convenient for the user.

AskAbout http://www.askabout.com/	Database that provides access to several languages
AltaVista http://altavista.com	Huge database of relevant & recent results. (110M pages keyword, but "ignores" common words.) Default search OR.
Ask Jeeves http://www.askjeeves.com	Large database that uses natural language.
Excite http://excite.com	Search by concept. (33M URLs) Default search is AND.
HotBot http://hotbot.com	Good and fast. (110M sites, keywords, stop words) Default search is AND.
InfoSeek http://infoseek.go.com	Still one of the best. (48 M sites) Default search is OR.
Lycos http://lycos.com	Greatly expanded with many new partners. (20 M URLs) Default search is OR.
Northern Light http://northernlight.com	Returns searches in categories. Has a database of journal articles. (130M pages and 5400 fulltext private sources) Default search is AND
WebCrawler http://webcrawler.com	Simple to use, part of Learn2.com

Meta Search Engines: Searches multiple search engines at the same time. This is a quick way to find some top sites on a topic.

All-inOne http://AllOneSearch.com	Goes to 400 engines, databases, directories and indexes.
DejaNews http://dejanews.com	Best tool for searching Usenet sites.
37.com http://37.com	Formerly DogPile. It uses 37 search engines
InfoSpace http://infospace.com	13 categories
Mamma http://mamma.com	The Mother of All Search Engines
MetaCrawler http://metacrawler.com	A good research tool
ProFusion http://profusion.com	Nine Search engines
Savvy Search http://savvysearch.com	Good interface uses eleven search sites.

Directories:

Magellan http://mckeiney.com	Green light sites, rated and reviewed sites
Snap http://snap.com	Has it’s own search engine. Sixteen topic area.
Yahoo http://yahoo.com	Excellent subject directory, human not machine indexed.

More Tips:

Stop Button – If you decide to move on because the data is taking too long to transfer, click on the STOP button to view the files that have already been downloaded. If you want to continue, click on the Reload button.

Copy and Paste – Save paper by saving to a Word document. Open Word, copy the information from the Internet and pasting it back in Word. Use the copy and paste under EDIT on the toolbar. Use the ALT – TAB to toggle between the documents.

Find Feature – Use the Find feature of your web browser. Once you have downloaded a document, use the Find feature located in the under Edit in the Menu Bar. It will help locate a particular term you are searching for.

Boolean logic –

AND – When looking for a information that should contain all your keywords use AND. An example would be: "Chicago Cubs" AND schedule.
OR – When trying to broaden the number of results that will find either of the key words used. An example would be: candy OR chocolate.
AND NOT – Use when a search term needs to be eliminated in documents when it is contained in that term. An example would be when searching for information on the country Jordan; "Jordan AND NOT Michael"
Wildcards/Truncations – Use a wildcard to find combinations of words or word fragments. Examples would include the following: cat* (cats as well as cat), Nation* (nation, national, nationalized).

There are different features in each database and search engine, so check out the Help Pages for tips to assist your you as you search.

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