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Mastering Effective Internet Searching Techniques

Learn the art of utilizing search engines, online guides, and search strategies for efficient research. Discover how to use Boolean operators, question searching, and advanced features to enhance your search results.

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Mastering Effective Internet Searching Techniques

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  1. Effective Internet Searching

  2. 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

  3. 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, AltaVista, MSN Search

  4. 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

  5. Four Search Strategies • Keyword Searching • Boolean • Question • Advanced

  6. 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

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

  8. Boolean Searching - OR • 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”) dogs cats

  9. Boolean Searching - NOT • 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) Washington school

  10. 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

  11. 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

  12. 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

  13. 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?

  14. 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?

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