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Internet Searching Strategies
Creating a Search Strategy
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Five Quick Tips
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Advanced Search Strategies
Creating a Search Strategy:
Always think about your search before you begin. Begin by asking yourself this question:
What do I want to do?
- Browse?
- Locate a specific piece of information?
- Retrieve everything I can on a subject?
Strategies:
Browsing
If you would simply like to begin browsing your topic to determine what's available, start out by using a Subject Directory like Yahoo. You can also try a metasearch engine just to see what's out there.
Locating a Specific Piece of Information
If you're looking for a specific piece of information, use a good search engine, such as Google or Altavista.
Retrieving everything I can on a subject?
Try the same search on several search engines. Remember to also try the high school databases and book resources!
You may also want to try a Meta Search Engine such as Metacrawler
Five Quick Tips for Searching for and Finding Information:
Searching online can be overwhelming. Your goal should be to define specific keywords relevant to your subject and search in a way that allows you to obtain fewer, more specific hits. The more specific you can be in your search, the less time you have to waste searching through sites that do not offer valuable information.
- Tip #1: Be specific!
Example: Search for "Ancient China" instead of China
- Tip #2:
Use the Advanced Search tool on the search engine. This feature will help you make your search more specific.
- Tip #3:
Use the plus (+) and minus (-) signs in front of words to force their inclusion and/or exclusion in searches.
Example: +hamlet -reviews
- Tip #4:
Use double quotation marks (" ") around phrases to ensure they are searched exactly as is, with the words side by side in the same order.
Example: "global warming"
- Tip #5:
Type keywords and phrases in lower case to find both lower and uppercase versions. Typing capital letters will usually return only an exact match.
Example: president retrieves both president and President
Advanced Search Strategies:
- Field Searching
Use a search engine that supports field searching, such as Altavista.
- Title Searching
Searching for a keyword in a title will usually produce more relevant responses.
Example: title: "Ancient Civilizations"
- Domain Searching
You can limit your field search to one a specific domain.
- .edu - educational site (usually a university or college)
- .com - commercial business site
- .gov - U.S. governmental/non-military site
- .mil - U.S. military sites and agencies
- .net - networks, Internet service providers, organizations
- .org - U.S. non-profit organizations and others
Example: domain:edu AND "Romeo and Juliet"
Note: Some search engines will allow you to limit the domain in the advanced search option.
- Link Search
If you found a web page that you would like to use and would like to know who is linking to it, you may choose a LINK search.
Example: link:www.saratogaschools.org will return pages with links to the school web site. This is a great tool to help you evaluate your web page.
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