Information Literacy Part 2 Part 1: | Part 3: | Part 4: | Part 5: | Part 6: | Part 7: | Part 8:
EIGHT SEARCH TECHNIQUES
Productivity begins here
#1 - BE SPECIFIC
In the previous issue we listed some general web search engines. These search engines index millions of pages. The more specific you are with the search, the better job they do returning useful results.
If you are searching for "printer" with the idea in mind of a printer that connects to a computer, keep in mind that "printer" could also mean a printing service shop. Give the search engine additional words to narrow your search such as "laser printer"
It is usually better to do many narrow searches and have a few pages to look at, than to make your search too broad, and spend valuable time looking through thousands of pages that don't interest you.
#2 - USE "AND" or "PHRASE"When Available
With some search engines if you enter the words "Great White Shark" separated by spaces, it will perform an "OR" search and return you all the pages that have the word "Great" and all the pages that have the word "White" and all the pages that have the word "Shark." Obviously this isn't what you intended.
If you want only the pages that have the phrase "Great White Shark", then some engines require that you specify a phrase search, or put your
phrase in quotes. Some search engines do not support this type of search.
For the search engines that don't support phrase searching, you should do the next best thing, and choose an AND search. Some search engines
will let you put the word "AND" between your search words. Some require that you put a plus sign in front of each word.
Using "AND" or "PHRASE" when available often reduces the number of results down from millions to the tens or hundreds.
Spend a few extra minutes learning how to enter your search words into the search engine. The time spent will almost always be saved by
searching through fewer higher-quality results.
#3 - USE THE BEST ENGINES FIRST
Not all search engines are created equal. Some index more pages, and some give higher quality results. We'll talk more about the quality of
results in Course #3.
Usually you are better off with engines that support "PHRASE" searches. These often give you the fewest and most qualified results.
#4 - BEWARE OF "SPOOF" PAGES
The nature of the Internet allows anyone to post anything for everyone to view. In an effort to drive people to their site, some people will put keywords on their pages to make their site the first one you see. This is especially true if you are searching the Internet for pages with the word "money" in it. You'll often find that the search engines return Get-Rich-Quick schemes first. This is because the authors of those pages have loaded the page with the word "money" so that the search engine returns it near the top of the list.
You can confirm this by selecting View/Source in your browser and looking for many instances of a keyword.
#5 - USE THE REFINING TOOLS
Some of the better search engines have tools that will let you narrow your search. This can be very useful when your search terms bring back
millions of results. LiveTopics at Digital's AltaVista http://www.altavista.com is particularly good at refining searches.
#6 - USE MULTIPLE SEARCH ENGINES
Using multiple search engines will get a better sample of pages. Most sites are listed with many search engines, but some may be listed with only one or two. We'll discuss the reason for this in the next course.
If you are just looking for a starting place to browse, then one search engine is sufficient. But, if you are looking to comprehensively research a topic on the internet, you will want to use morethan one search engine.
Another reason to use multiple search engines is to "skim the cream." Most of the search engines will return the "best" results first. The "best" results are the pages that have the highest number of your keywords or phrase in them. This means you can visit multiple search engines and take the first ten, or hundred, results from each search engine and have a better list of pages than if you took five hundred results from one search engine.
There are server-side meta-search engines on the web which will submit your keywords to multiple engines for you. Two examples of these are: http://www.metasearch.com http://www.search.com
#7 - USE META-SEARCH TOOLS
Use of meta-search tools can greatly speed your research. In addition to running your keywords through several search engines at one time, they also keep you from having to learn the syntax of each search engine. A couple good meta-search tools are: freeality.com dogpile.com
#8 - USE TOPICAL SEARCH ENGINES
As the web gets larger, the general web search engines become less and less useful. There are many new search engines that only index certain
sites or content specific to a topic.
An example of a topical search engine is the search engine History Buff's http://www.historybuff.com/library/search.htmlThis engine searches only newspaper press coverage of events in American history. By using the right search site, you've already eliminated millions of pages that are useless to you.
Information Literacy Part 2
Part 1: | Part 3: | Part 4: | Part 5: | Part 6: | Part 7: | Part 8:
EIGHT SEARCH TECHNIQUES
Productivity begins here
#1 - BE SPECIFIC
In the previous issue we listed some general web search engines. These search engines index millions of pages. The more specific you are with the search, the better job they do returning useful results.
If you are searching for "printer" with the idea in mind of a printer that connects to a computer, keep in mind that "printer" could also mean a printing service shop. Give the search engine additional words to narrow your search such as "laser printer"
It is usually better to do many narrow searches and have a few pages to look at, than to make your search too broad, and spend valuable time looking through thousands of pages that don't interest you.
#2 - USE "AND" or "PHRASE" When Available
With some search engines if you enter the words "Great White Shark" separated by spaces, it will perform an "OR" search and return you all the pages that have the word "Great" and all the pages that have the word "White" and all the pages that have the word "Shark." Obviously this isn't what you intended.
If you want only the pages that have the phrase "Great White Shark", then some engines require that you specify a phrase search, or put your
phrase in quotes. Some search engines do not support this type of search.
For the search engines that don't support phrase searching, you should do the next best thing, and choose an AND search. Some search engines
will let you put the word "AND" between your search words. Some require that you put a plus sign in front of each word.
Using "AND" or "PHRASE" when available often reduces the number of results down from millions to the tens or hundreds.
Spend a few extra minutes learning how to enter your search words into the search engine. The time spent will almost always be saved by
searching through fewer higher-quality results.
#3 - USE THE BEST ENGINES FIRST
Not all search engines are created equal. Some index more pages, and some give higher quality results. We'll talk more about the quality of
results in Course #3.
Usually you are better off with engines that support "PHRASE" searches. These often give you the fewest and most qualified results.
#4 - BEWARE OF "SPOOF" PAGES
The nature of the Internet allows anyone to post anything for everyone to view. In an effort to drive people to their site, some people will put keywords on their pages to make their site the first one you see. This is especially true if you are searching the Internet for pages with the word "money" in it. You'll often find that the search engines return Get-Rich-Quick schemes first. This is because the authors of those pages have loaded the page with the word "money" so that the search engine returns it near the top of the list.
You can confirm this by selecting View/Source in your browser and looking for many instances of a keyword.
#5 - USE THE REFINING TOOLS
Some of the better search engines have tools that will let you narrow your search. This can be very useful when your search terms bring back
millions of results. LiveTopics at Digital's AltaVista http://www.altavista.com is particularly good at refining searches.
#6 - USE MULTIPLE SEARCH ENGINES
Using multiple search engines will get a better sample of pages. Most sites are listed with many search engines, but some may be listed with only one or two. We'll discuss the reason for this in the next course.
If you are just looking for a starting place to browse, then one search engine is sufficient. But, if you are looking to comprehensively research a topic on the internet, you will want to use morethan one search engine.
Another reason to use multiple search engines is to "skim the cream." Most of the search engines will return the "best" results first. The "best" results are the pages that have the highest number of your keywords or phrase in them. This means you can visit multiple search engines and take the first ten, or hundred, results from each search engine and have a better list of pages than if you took five hundred results from one search engine.
There are server-side meta-search engines on the web which will submit your keywords to multiple engines for you. Two examples of these are:
http://www.metasearch.com
http://www.search.com
#7 - USE META-SEARCH TOOLS
Use of meta-search tools can greatly speed your research. In addition to running your keywords through several search engines at one time, they also keep you from having to learn the syntax of each search engine. A couple good meta-search tools are:
freeality.com
dogpile.com
#8 - USE TOPICAL SEARCH ENGINES
As the web gets larger, the general web search engines become less and less useful. There are many new search engines that only index certain
sites or content specific to a topic.
An example of a topical search engine is the search engine History Buff's
http://www.historybuff.com/library/search.htmlThis engine searches only newspaper press coverage of events in American history. By using the right search site, you've already eliminated millions of pages that are useless to you.