page under construction (update in progress 11/2007)
BASIC SEARCH ENGINE HELP
IINTRODUCTION:
Your browser,
search engines--the three basic types, other Internet indexes, TROY subject
links, WWW tools and utilities.
SEARCHING
TECHNIQUES:
Most important, capitalization, truncation, natural language,
search limiters: +, "
", -, (
), and, or,
not, expanding and limiting your search.
Link to the Advanced Help page for more detailed help and information about every search engine that is linked from the Search Engines page--it's worth the time!
INTRODUCTION
BROWSERSYour Internet browser, e.g., Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, or Netscape, allows you to navigate effectively among web sites. Become familiar with your browser's features! Taking some time to become comfortable using your browser will allow you to more quickly and effectively locate the information you need. For more information about finding, evaluating, downloading, citing, etc. Internet resources, click here.
SEARCH ENGINES
Search engines (SEs) are indexes (lists, pointers, directories) to sites
on the Internet. Presented below is information about the three main types
of of search engines, other WWW starting points, and some general search
techniques. The Advanced Help page provides more detailed help for
the individual search engines.
THREE PRIMARY
TYPES OF SEARCH ENGINES
There are three primary types of search engines: Key Word, Category
(subject / menu), Meta. When searching the Internet, use the correct type
of SE.
Key Word search engines search directly for web sites based on words that you enter. An example is AltaVista (http://www.altavista.com). Use a key word SE when you are looking for individual Web sites with very specific information, e.g.:
- Where will the 2000 World Science Fiction Convention be held?
- Where can I find criticism or interpretation of pre-raphaelite art?
- I want to see ratings of Chicago steakhouses.
- I need a biography of Julia Ward Howe. She wrote The Battle Hymn of the Republic.
How many trees are planted in Gainesville, Florida each year?
Use a key word search engine when you are looking for a very specific site that is not likely to have its own subject heading in a category search engine. Other good key word search engines are linked from the Search Engines page.
Category search engines search from a series of subject menus. An example is Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.com).
Category SEs allow you to search their listings in two ways:
- Choose (click on) subjects/categories from the main and subsequent menus. For example, from the main menu which provides a broad list of general subject areas, e.g., Art, Business, Government, Science, you might select Arts & Humanities. You are then presented with a menu of topics on art, literature, music, etc. From this and subsequent menus you might choose Art--then Art History--then Criticism and Theory.
- Enter terms of interest into a search box (and perform the search). The key is to remember that you are typically searching for that SE's category headings (primarily) and, to a lesser extent, sites listed within those categories.
Use a category SE when you are looking for a single site, e.g., the home page for a large company or government agency. There is no need to look through the many sites that a key word search engine will give you when you only need the correct one. Use Yahoo when you are looking for general categories or subjects, e.g.:
DON'T use these types of search engines when searching for very specific topics/sites, e.g., Lead and Zinc Mining in Dubuque, Iowa. Other good category search engines are linked from the Search Engines page.
Meta search engines search several search engines simultaneously. An example is DogPile (http://www.dogpile.com).
Use Dogpile when you are looking for information which is hard to find (e.g., if AltaVista or Yahoo found few or no web sites) or if you are performing an exhaustive search of the Internet.
Other good meta search engines are linked from the Search Engines page.
Q: Which engine should I start my search with?
A: Here are some general guidelines. See also the "EXPANDING OR LIMITING YOUR SEARCH" section, below.
1. Looking for a single site, .e.g., the home page for General Motors, the Department of Defense, or the American Heart Association.
- Use a category SE (Yahoo) [your first choice] or an intuitive key word SE (Google) [your second choice]. Most large, and many small, companies are listed on Yahoo. If they are not, Google, a key word SE, does a very good job of finding just what you are looking for when performing a broad search (something you would normally avoid doing in most key word search engines). If the site you are looking for is not found using this method, try a key word search engine (AltaVista, InfoSeek, etc.)--make sure to use search limiters.
- EXAMPLE: Searching in Yahoo for minority business development agency will quickly locate the home page for the Minority Business Development Agency, www.mbda.gov.
2. Looking for several sites on a broad topic, .e.g., Automobiles, Military History, or Heart Disease.
- Use a category SE (Yahoo) [your first choice] or an intuitive key word SE (Google) [your second choice].
- EXAMPLES: Yahoo will provide you a list of categories and sites for topics such as heart disease, colleges, biology, or games.
- EXAMPLES: the Ask Jeeves SE (you just have to try it to really understand it) is excellent for answering questions broad questions such as Why is the sky blue? What is the capitol of France? What do I feed my pet Iguana?
3. Looking for one or more sites on a very specific topic, .e.g.:
- Where will the 2000 World Science Fiction Convention be held?
- Where can I find criticism or interpretation of pre-raphaelite art?
- I want to see ratings of Chicago steakhouses.
- I need a biography of Julia Ward Howe. She wrote The Battle Hymn of the Republic.
How many trees are planted in Gainesville, Florida each year?
Use a key word SE such as AltaVista or InfoSeek.. If you don't have any luck with the first few that you try, you can use a meta SE, e.g., DogPile or Inference Find, to search a number of key word SEs simultaniously.
OTHER INTERNET
INDEXES
The Search Engines web page
provides convenient access to these and other search engines as well as
to other excellent resources for finding sites on the Internet. Listed
resources such as the WWW Virtual Library
and the Britannica Internet Guide
are valuable but often underutilized tools for locating Internet sites.
TROY
SUBJECT LINKS
The page provides links to several hundred WWW Links arranged by academic
area. These links are an excellent way to quickly locate some of the
most useful Internet sites on a subject. Although a few individual
web sites are listed on the Troy subject pages, most links are to sites
that are comprehensive resources for a given subject. These "Best
of the Best" web sites have been selected with the TROY student in
mind. Please take the time to review the links for your area of interest.
WWW TOOLS AND UTILITIES
The Search Engines and WWW Links Web page
provides links to software that may be of interest to researchers and
other scholars who need information from the Internet. These computer
applications are typically commercial, i.e., for-sale software that provides
powerful and sophisticated search and retrieval features. The kind
of things they do: Provide a wide selection of searching methods, filtering,
and grouping; show links to sites related to a site you are viewing; highlight
your search terms on found sites; show statistics on how many sites are
linked to a site of interest; and provide spell-checking, related words,
and/or synonyms.
SEARCHING TECHNIQUES
MOST
IMPORTANT
Each search engine has its own special way of searching. For search engines
you use on a regular basis, make sure to read the help information for
that search engine. You can look for the help page when you are at that
search engine, or see the Advanced Help page linked here.
CAPITALIZATION
Don't! Generally, search engines ARE case sensitive, i.e., they do
care whether or not you capitalize. The safest choice is not
to capitalize. If a search engine is case sensitive, a lower-case
search will look for both upper and lower case, but an upper-case search
may search for an exact case match.
TRUNCATION
One of the most widely available search features is truncation.
A truncation symbol, often * (asterisk, star, shift-8), searches for various
endings to your search term. For example, using the search term psy* will
prompt the search engine to look for all words beginning with psy, e.g.,
psychiatry, psychiatric, psychiatrist, psychoanalyze, etc. Searching wish*
will look for wish, wishes, wishful, wishbone, etc.
NATURAL
LANGUAGE
Most search engines have a list of stop-words, i.e., words they will not
search for. Because words like "of, to, it," etc. will appear
on just about every document, they are ignored. The standard way to state
what you are looking for is to enter the most important/unique terms.
For example: If you want to know What are the lyrics to the Beatles
song "Drive my Car"?, you really only need to use
the terms lyrics, beatles, and drive my car.
SEARCH
LIMITERS
The most basic way to search is simply to type in the terms you are looking
for--natural language (and press enter or hit the search/go button,
etc.). This will usually get you results but, more often than not, it
will return too much unrelated information. Virtually every search engine
provides one or more ways for the searcher to more clearly identify just
what it is they are looking for. The following are the most common ways
to limit your search.
-
The plus: +
+ means that the word it is connected to must be in any items that are found. QUESTION: Do you mean that when I do a search without the plus, the search engine is not always looking for all the terms I enter? ANSWER: Yes and no--it will try to find documents/sites with all of your terms. But if it cannot find all the terms, or when it runs out of one, it may look for the closest thing it can find. A good way to find lyrics to the Beatles song "Drive my Car" would be to search +lyrics +beatles +"drive my car". -
The quotation marks: " "
"" says that you are looking for a specific phrase - not just individual words. In the example above, using "drive my car" makes sure that those three words appear right next to each other (and in that order). -
The minus sign or dash: -
- means you don't want a particular word. Example: I want to know about gypsies [the people not the insect] in the Czech Republic. The word gypsy can also be spelled gipsy. gypsies can also be spelled gypsys. I might try searching for +gyps* +czech* -moths. In this example, czech was truncated because it may be listed as the Czech Republic or Czechoslovakia. A search for +gyps* +canada -moths finds lots of items related to the mineral gypsum. One way to overcome this would be to use -gypsum. Another example: +"star wars" +defense +budget -movie -"motion picture". -
Boolean operators: and, or, not, near.
The plus and minus are the most frequently-used characters to represent concepts such as AND (+) or NOT (-). Many search engines allow you to search using these words to specify that you must include certain terms, or that you must exclude a certain term, or that you want one of several terms. -
Parentheses: ( )
( ) can be used to GROUP or NEST your search terms, i.e., tell the search engine in exactly what manner to search. Example: (teen* or youth or juvenile) and (career or vocation or job) and (counseling or guidance or selection) not (g.e.d. or graduate equivalency diploma)
MORE EXAMPLES:
(gyps* or gips*) and canada not gypsum
(parrot or parakeet or budgerigar) and (diet or food or feeding)
"food additives" and ((heart or cardiovascular) and disease) not human
rules and polo not water
chicago and (steakhouse or "steak house") and (rankings or ratings)
aero* and engineering and (school or academy or college or university)
The best way to understand the use of boolean operators is to see diagrams of some searches. Below are three diagrams that represent the basic concepts AND, OR, NOT.
Click here to see some additional information and diagrams which will help to clarify these concepts.
EXPANDING OR LIMITING YOUR SEARCH
If your search results in few or no results, try: Starting with fewer terms or starting with broader terms; using synonyms for your terms; truncating words to get various endings or trying plurals; checking your spelling; making sure you are using a search engine that is appropriate for the type of search you are doing. Note: There is a dictionary and thesaurus linked from the search engines page.
If your search results in too many results, try: Adding additional terms; using the plus before terms to make sure they are searched (e.g., +golf +associations +florida); putting the dash/minus before words to exclude them (e.g., +gypsies -moths); using quotation marks to identify phrases (e.g., "george washington" and "cherry tree"). Use as many of these methods as necessary (e.g., +paris +texas -france +"general contractors").
MOST
IMPORTANT
Each search engine has its own unique way of searching. For search engines
you use on a regular basis, be sure to read the help information for that
particular search engine. You can look for the help page when you are
at the search engine itself, or see the Advanced Help page linked here.
This page updated, spelling and links checked : Friday, October 19, 2007 ALL LINKS ARE NOT ACCURATE. UPDATE IN PROGRESS.
