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Search and Ye Shall Find: Effectively Using the Internet

SEARCH TOOLS

Meta Search Engines-these search several search engines at once.
For example: MetaCrawler, Dogpile, Ixquick, and Search.com.

Specialty Search Engines-allow you to search for a specific type of information.
For example: Ditto, MoneyWeb, and SportSearch.

Invisible Web-helps you find high quality sites that are not available to search engines.
For example: CompletePlanet, Invisible Web, and Direct Search.

Directories-human-selected web sites organized by topic.
For example: WWW Virtual Library, About.com, and Argus Clearinghouse.

TIPS FOR POPULAR SEARCH ENGINES

Search Engine Showdown Search engine updates, articles on searching, statistics, workshops, and comparisons.

Pandia Contains tutorials on searching, search engine news, search tips, etc.

"How to Search the Web: a Guide to Search Tools" Site maintained by Terry A. Gray, Academic Technology Supervisor, Palomar College.

BEGINNING YOUR RESEARCH

e.g. Do students learn better in traditional classrooms or through Internet classes?

2. List (or think of) key words for the concepts and questions. For example:

students - college, university students
learning
classroom
Internet

3. Consider synonyms and variations of the key words. For example:

students - college, university
learning - learning styles
classroom - traditional
Internet - distance education, WebCT, Mallard,

4. Identify the relationships between the concepts.

students AND learning
distance education AND Internet
college OR university

5. Decide which search tools (Engine, Directory, etc.) to use.

Google
LibraryHQ

6. Examine the special search directions for your search tool - either at the engine's own web site or at a summary site like or Web Search Cheat Sheet.

Web Search Cheat Sheet

7. Come up with search queries:

Choose Google- using the search directions, we can create the following query to enter in the google search box:

"distance education" Internet learning university students

(From http://www.library.uiuc.edu/rex/instruction/Internet/internetresearch.htm -- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)

EVALUATING INTERNET RESOURCES

AUTHORITY: Is the author identified? What are his/her credentials? Does the author have expertise in this subject area? Is contact information (phone number, address, email) available for the author?

AUDIENCE: Who is this site intended to reach?

CONTENT AND PURPOSE: Is the accuracy of information verifiable? Can you find similar information in print? Are there citations or a bibliography? Is the information clearly biased and are there links to the other side of the argument? What is the purpose of the site - to inform, explain, or persuade?

SOURCE/AFFILIATION: What is the sponsoring organization? Does it have a bias? Why is it sponsoring the site? Is it a .com and therefore a commercial site?

CURRENCY: How recent is the information? When was the page last modified?

For further information, see:

"Evaluating Web Sources." Developed by Angelynn King, University of Redlands.

CITING INTERNET RESOURCES

See Also: style guides at the library.

SAMPLE SEARCHES

Simple searching tips:

• Use a + for terms that MUST be present in the search results
• Use a - for terms that MUST NOT be present in the search results
• Use quotation marks to search for phrases: "French Revolution"
• Google is NOT case sensitive: "martha stewart" and "Martha Stewart" produce the same results
• Google does NOT support truncation. Enter in the various forms of the word you are looking for: shop shopping shoppers

Advanced searching tips:

• Use OR to search for either word A or word B: physician OR doctor
• [stock: intc yhoo] will show information about Intel and Yahoo. (Note you must use ticker symbols, not the company name.)
• [allintitle: swedish colleges] will bring back sites that have both "swedish" and "colleges" in the title of the web page.
• [intitle:beagles adoption] will bring back sites that have "beagles" in the title and "adoption" anywhere in the page. Note there can be no space between the "intitle:" and the following word.
• [allinurl: antiques minnesota] will bring back sites that have both "antiques" and "minnesota" in the url.

• Catalog Search, Cached Pages, "I'm Feeling Lucky," Web Page Translation, Stock Quotes...

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