Effective Internet Searching Why use the Internet Search

Effective Internet Searching

Why use the Internet • • Search for a question Research a topic Current research Variety of sources, a click away • What other non-online resources? – Encyclopedia, book, dictionary, Atlas, World Almanac

Search Engines • Collects copies of web pages from various host servers • Assembled into a data base • Displayed according to relevancy and rank • Search engines use a program to search and retrieve web sites; spiders/crawl the web thru links • Algorithm to determine rank; company ‘trade secret’ • Google, Ask Jeeves, AOL Search, Alta. Vista, MSN Search

Internet Guides • Index or directory of websites • Classified by subject categories • Organized by humans and not computer programs/algorithms • Yahoo, Librarian’s Internet Index. EBSCO host, libraries

Four Search Strategies • • Keyword Searching Boolean Question Advanced

Keyword Searching • Enter terms to search • Use quotation marks to search as a phrase and keep the words linked together • Common words are ignored (that, to, which, a, the, …) • + and – can be used to include or exclude a word

Boolean Searching - AND president Washington • Enter words connect with AND - it will include sites where both words are found • Uses: joining different topics (ie. “global warming” AND California

Boolean Searching - OR dogs cats • Enter words connect with OR - requires at least one of the terms is found • Uses: join similar or synonymous topics (ie. “global warming” OR “greenhouse effect”)

Boolean Searching - NOT Washington school • Enter words connect with NOT – searches for the first term and excludes sites that have the second term • Uses: join similar or synonymous topics (ie. Washington NOT school)

Boolean – (Nesting) and Near • In a string of searching, terms placed in parentheses are searched first • Parentheses must be used to group items if there is another Boolean operator being used • NEAR may be used to require words to be found within 16 words of each other in the pages returned

Question Searching • A question may be entered in the search field of a search engine. • Ask Jeeves is a search engine that encourages the use of question searching

Advanced Searching • Advanced search features are offered on many engines by going to an “Advanced Search” page and making selections • This is effective in narrowing search returns to a specific topic or phrase Google Advanced Search

Getting’ it – Do you? • What is the difference between a Search Engine and an Internet Guide? • Why do search engines return different results for the same search query?

Getting’ it – Do you? • Which Boolean search term broadens a search? • Which Boolean search term narrows a search? • What built-in tool in most search engines is helpful in narrowing a search?