Finding Information on the Internet
Basic Overview
- Think through your topic—what search terms will you use?
- What are the key words in your topic?
These will be your search terms. - Are there any words that you should exclude so that you don't get false hits?
These are the terms that you will want to exclude. - Choose a search engine/directory to search
- Search engine: uses a program to search through web sites for your search terms
www.hotbot.com
www.altavista.com
www.northernlight.com - Directory: searches an index of web sites reviewed by humans
www.google.com
www.yahoo.com
www.invisibleweb.com (searches the "hidden" parts of the web) - Search smart: use AND, NOT, OR and quotes
- Link search terms with AND to narrow a search
Coca Cola and marketing
Coca Cola +marketing - Link search terms with OR to broaden a search
Coca Cola or Pepsi - Use NOT to exclude a term
Coca Cola not Pepsi
Coca Cola -marketing - Put phrases in quotation marks
"General Mills" - Search several engines, or use a meta-search engine that searches several search engines at once.
www.dogpile.com
www.metacrawler.com
Remember: It often takes several searches before you find what you're looking for. Don't give up!
The Internet is only one aspect of the research process. To search the Internet effectively, you must have a basic knowledge of your subject and some specific terms in mind. Use the traditional library resources -- books, periodicals, and reference works -- to prepare you for the Internet search.
Good Internet Tutorials
To learn more about searching the web, the library recommends the following web-based tutorials:
Finding Information on the Internet: A Tutorial
Written by a professor at UC Berkeley, this tutorial includes a sound methodology to create a search strategy, tables of search engines and directories, tips for the major search engines, and a list of other places to search.
The Web at a Glance
Fast, easy explanations of the various parts of the Internet