--Samuel
Johnson, 1744--
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Let’s
first narrow down in your mind what you are searching for?
Is it General Information, History, Science, or Flower Arranging?
Well, to do any job right you must have the right tools.
We will explore in this module the right tools and time saving
strategies. Hopefully, you didn’t
wait to the last minute to start writing that paper did you?
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Sometimes having information about the differences between the search engines can be very helpful.
Search engines collect and index what exists on the
Internet. Their search methods and
power vary. By entering keywords
the search engine retrieves information from large databases in order to return
them in a url or as a page depending upon your query. Some examples would be
Alta Vista (http://www.altavista.com/
), Excite ( http://www.excite.com/)
and HotBot, (http://hotbot.lycos.com/
).
Metasearch
engines
perform
multi-threaded searches with robots by searching through many search engines at
the same time to achieve results. These
searches are done through a single interface. Depending upon specific topics
there are times that you can receive over 20 pages of urls to sort through.
Some of the most common examples of metasearch engines are Lycos,
(http://www.lycos.com)
Dogpile, (http://www.dogpile.com)
and MetaCrawler, (http://www.metacrawler.com/index.html
).
Directories are hierarchical databases that are compiled by humans rather than robots that the search and metasearch engines use. Human editors compile, categorize, and sometimes rank submitted web sites for the directory. They are good but not as comprehensive as the other two search engines. One example is Yahoo,(http://www.yahoo.com).
Note
of caution:
not all the search engines use the same techniques.
After you use a couple of them you may start to narrow down your
preference and then again, you might discover something better along the way.
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Try
to think of the Internet as this mega information highway that opens up the
So
let’s go over this again.
You have to do research, you know the topic and you have a few ideas
floating around.
Do you need an article, a newspaper clipping, graphics, or some
historical documented information?
Well, there are specialized search engines with directories for each of
these I mentioned.
Let’s go over some that may be helpful. For example, if you are looking
for Journal articles on Educational topics you might want to check out AskEric,
(http://www.eric.ed.gov/ ) which for a fee
per article you can pull submissions of 1000s of education related articles from
journals, conferences, etc.
Example
of the possible charges for each request:
| Paper | Fiche | Fax | Int Fax | Electronic |
| 8.92 | 1.51 | 26.52 | 98.92 | 9.36 (Best Value) |
Here
is a direct quote from the site: “ERIC is the world's largest source of
education information, with more than 1 million abstracts of documents and
journal articles on education research and practice. Our version of the
Database, updated monthly with the latest citations available, provides access
to ERIC Document citations from 1966 through November 2001 and ERIC Journal
citations from 1966 through November 2001.”
Pretty impressive, isn’t it?
Is your search more general, you might try to use
a site called SearchAbility,
http://www.searchability.com/popular.htm,
this site provides guides to search engines specializing in popular subjects
such as entertainment, travel, medicine, law, cars and much more.
These resources are usually free.
Let’s say that you are searching a topic in
Science that you need an article to substantiate your research. Try BUBL,
http://www.bubl.ac.uk/journals/
This is a list of links to Library and Information Science Journals in Great
Britain, Europe, Australia and the United States.
The
good news is that these sites and more is available and can be found by using
your Metasearch engines which I will show you in this module.
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The
object here is to narrow down the number of hits returned using keywords.
You want to select specific words that are unique to the topic you are
researching. This may take some
thought before you start. There is
nothing to worry about if your first search hits the jackpot with over thousands
of hits because the ranking and relevancy will be the important point here.
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Power
Searches goes one step further by limiting results by date, domain and the
document type. Most of the search
engines that you encounter have a range from simple ways to search as well as
advanced search techniques. We will
start with HotBot, http://hotbot.lycos.com/,
trying our hand at our first major Power
Search. Pick your research
topic and find Advanced Search on HotBot’s Home Page. Notice all the choices from topics, dates, and how many
returns per page. There is one more
thing to notice, there are usually full descriptions on each return so you will
know the content of each site.
Did you see
More like this…., at the end of each hit, this can
be helpful because if you think you are on the right track then there’s more
just like that…….
Syntax Helps to Narrow the Search
(+
-)
+ Requires - Excludes
Example:
+Dolphins – Football
This
way the football team Miami Dolphins football won’t show up in your search.
(“”)
Use quotation marks around the exact phrases so words will appear in that order.
Example:
“Custer’s Last Stand”
Use
AND OR NOT
Example:
Thanksgiving AND Pilgrims
Example:
heart OR coronary artery
Example:
Simon NOT Garfunkle (some search engines don’t recognize this one)
Capitalize
Proper Names
The
only search engine known off hand that does not recognize caps (capital letters)
is Google, http://www.google.com/.
The
Wild Card *
If
you are not sure of the ending of a word you can truncate with an asterisk * to
find all possible combinations.
Example:
comput* will retrieve compute, computer, computation, etc.
Or
if you are unsure of spelling use a
?
and it will at least give you multiple responses.
Example:
choc?lat will bring you chocolate, chocolate recipes and many other things as
you will see.
Site
Limit
If
you know the exact site you want to search on, you can specify it within a
search.
Example:
site: University of Pacific.edu + history + demographics
Note:
Some search engines require different Boolean notations and some only work in
the advanced searches as in Alta Vista’s, (http://www.altavista.com/
) case. Read the Help
Screens if you are unsure.
Now
let’s go to AltaVista,
http://www.altavista.com/
and select the “Advanced Search”, this will allow you to limit the results
by date, domain and type. Use your
Boolean search techniques you learned above.
What
did you notice different from the first search?
Did one Search Engine provide more and better sites for your topic?
That’s where you really begin to see how different search engines can
fit your needs.
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Help is out there for you in
more ways than one! You might
discover that after all the searching you are still a little lost and need some
expert, real person talk to me, kind of help.
There are several LISTSERVs you can join on just about any subject where
you can cyberchat through email with resident experts in the field.
The program that runs this mailing list is called a LISTSERV. Anyone can
subscribe to a mailing list by sending a SUBSCRIBE command to the LISTSERV
administrative address. They are free and again, they can get you in touch with
experts on that topic. It is important to find legitimate LISTSERVS, so to be
safe I would join the ones on popular, well-known searchers such as Yahoo,
http://www.yahoo.com/ or Tile.Net
http://www.tile.net/
. Tile.Net is a free service and will give you many types of lists to choose
from but you do have to register.
For more information here is
a great tutorial for first time Listserver adventurer,
http://seamonkey.ed.asu.edu/~storslee/list.html
. You can also do a specific Listserv search if you would like to learn more
about a certain organization or club. Here’s
an example of a ListServ for those battling ADD/ADHD,
listserver@bdtp.com Subject line
doesn't matter. In the body of the message type: subscribe
addparents your_name.
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As
we mentioned before, when you begin your search there will be 100s, no maybe
1,000s of sites that you will find on that particular topic.
How do you manage all these resources?
Well, here’s are a couple of ways.
If you are at your home computer you can bookmark your findings and
organize in topical folders. Since
some of the sites are generically named you could put your own title to bookmark
or identify more specifically.
Most
of the time you may be in the library or the school Lab.
If you have a disk, open a Word doc. and cut and paste the urls into a
word document, with an annotation (abbreviated info about the site) and then
rate the site in your own words. Something
like this maybe: Good site, full of info, and lots of graphics, picture of Mark
Twain. If you like star * ratings
then that’s fine, too. The
important thing is that when you go back to the list, you have made yourself a
small search directory of your own. Of
course, if you have email then you can always email yourself the information and
urls. The great thing is that once
you create an active link you simply click on it and Walla! it takes you right
there to your favorite find.
Last
but certainly not least, and most powerful, is a tool called EndNotes,
http://www.endnote.com/
. EndNotes4 is a complete resource
for gathering and maintaining
bibliographic references. EndNotes4 allows a 30 day free trial. So if
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Chances are that you are going to find some content that’s on the Internet that you want to use in your research paper. Remember to put it in your own words unless you plan to quote and footnote the sections. Instructors and folks who have been reading papers for years can spot plagiarism, which by the way means copying word for word without citing it with a source. To combat this epidemic there are now services all over the Net that can check out if content has been stolen, copied, not cited properly and if it is an original. Services such as Turnitin, http://www.turnitin.com, allow Instructors, sometimes unaware to the student, to search the world for duplicated information. The best-case scenario is when the student uses the information on the Internet to help develop their thoughts and cites sources correctly; benefiting from a timely and well-thought out research paper, not to mention a good grade.
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No
matter what you do knowing how to troubleshoot helps!
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You tried the search techniques and you have received over 1 billion hits, well that is an exaggeration of sorts but it seems that way. You might have tried one term and it was pretty common like the word “animals.” Now try adding some more specific terms to the search such as “extinct animals.” Don’t forget the syntax you learned to narrow down that search. |
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You might have gotten just a few documents back and that could mean that your search is too narrow. GO back and try it again. Check for spelling errors, and if you configured your search correctly, or try another metasearcher. |
| If you get a “:404 – File Not Found” message when you try the url site this indicates that the file has moved, no longer exists or has a new name. Usually, the page will redirect you but if the site has been removed then chances are you will not know unless the author has provided that information. If you really need that particular information, try Google,(http://www.google.com/ ) which maintains copies of pages in their cache. |
| The search returns a “Server Error” or “Server is Busy” message. This could simply be you have crashed, you are offline, or traffic may be very busy to that site at the time. In this case get a cup of coffee, come back and try again. |
| A message “Server Does Not Have A DNS Entry” returns which means that your server is busy or down for maintenance. Double check for spelling and try again in a few minutes. |
| This is probably the most frustrating error message. You can’t find the Home Page for that site you know the name of. Many organizations use their names or acronyms in their url address such as IBM, http://www.ibm.com/. Try what you think might be the right name and if that does not work than you can go to your browser and type in the name of the company or organization in the small window and it will usually take you to a match. |
Search the Web
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| Knowing
the extensions of the url address is another advantage when searching for a
particular type of site. Here is a chart that may help when searching for
certain domains. |
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.edu |
Educational sites, usually a
college or university |
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.com |
Commercial or business site |
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.gov |
Governmental site |
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.org |
Nonprofit organization |
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.net |
ISP (Internet Service
Provider) |
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As
we mentioned earlier in the module, it is important to cite your resources. We cannot end this module without giving “credit where
credit is due.” There are so many
resources on the Internet to help provide ideas and direction.
for Internet Research.
