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Searching
the Internet
There are billions of pages on the Internet. Finding
the information that you need can be a challenge. There are a number of
tools available to make finding what you want eaisier. One caution regarding
information found on the Internet is that there is no guarantee that the
information is accurate.
Search
engines
Search
engines have programs that scour the Internet, storing locations of text-based
information. You type in keywords and the search engine will return sites
(often thousands of them) that contain the keywords that you requested.
The challenge is to make your search specific enough to find a reasonable
number of sites. To help you can use the following Boolean operators between
keywords:
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AND
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will find sites that contain both keywords (ex. africa AND lion - will find sites that contain the words Africa and lion; Boolean operators should be all upper-case letters. It is good practice to use all lower-case letters for keywords.) |
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OR
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will find sites that contain either of the keywords (ex. slavery OR emancipation - would return sites that contain either of the words) |
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NOT
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finds sites that contain the first keyword but not the second keyword (ex. lion NOT detroit - would find sites that contain the word lion, but would exclude Detroit Lion footall sites. lion NOT football - would be a better choice because it would eliminate any sites that have football teams named Lions.) |
You can use parentheses to construct even more specific searches. For example: (lions AND africa) NOT serengeti - would be useful for finding information on African lions that are not on the Serengeti Plain.
To find exact phrases, use quotation marks in your search. For example "four score and seven" would be useful in finding the text of the Gettysburg Address.
Searching the Internet with a search engine involves some trial and error, but with some persistence and wise selection of keywords you can usually get good results quickly. Here are some good search engines:
- Google (www.google.com) - My personal favorite - it's fast and usually gives good results.
- Yahoo (www.yahoo.com)
- AltaVista (www.altavista.com)
- Excite (www.excite.com)
- Lycos (www.lycos.com)
- Ask Jeeves (www.ask.com) - This search engine lets you type in actual questions of Jeeves the butler.
Directories
Directories
are collections of sites organized by topic. You locate information by
choosing more specific categories until you reach an individual site.
Directories are generally reviewed by actual people, so the sites that
you find tend to be of good quality. Most search engines (like all of
the above) also have directories.
The largest directory is the Open Directory Project (www.dmoz.com). You can even sign up as an editor to help build this monster directory.
Metasearch
Engines
Metasearch
engines submit your keywords to multiple search engines and show you the
top results from each.
- Dogpile (www.dogpile.com)
- MetaCrawler (www.metacrawler.com)
How Good
Is Your Info?
Since anyone can put information on the Internet, you
need to be discriminating. Here are some guidelines to help make sure
your information is accurate:
- Is the source reliable? - Is the site produced by reputable individual or organization?
- Does the site provide references for the source of their information?
- Do you find the same information from more than one source?
Be sure to
examine information on the Internet with a discriminating eye!