Information on the Internet is not organized. New pages on a wide
variety of topics come and go every day. In addition, there is a great
imbalance of information. Unlike an encyclopedia that is carefully balanced
for depth, breadth, and amount of information on preselected topics, the
Internet varies greatly in quality and quantity of any given topic. There
is a great deal of garbage intermixed with the sites that have useful information.
Hyper-Links
Follow links that someone else has collected on a given topic. Frequently,
someone or a group of people have already done extensive searching of information
on a topic that you are looking for. These people often list on a web page,
all the sites that they have already located. The Carroll County Public
Schools Homework Helper is a good place to start following links.
Directories
Directories are catalogs created and reviewed by a real person according
to some set of criteria and organized by topic under general categories.
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Sample directories include: Yahoo, Yahooligans, Magelan, etc.
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Use Directories for a few good sites on a general topic.
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Follow category branches down to desired topics to get just the shade or
context you are looking for.
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Yahooligans and Magelan green sites have been checked for child appropriateness
as well as content relevance.
Search Engines
Robotic search engines are each set up in a unique fashion to collect and
catalog information according to some set of parameters. These are updated
periodically, however, frequency of updating depends on the individual
search engine. There is a wide variety in the number of sites each search
engine attempts to catalog ranging into the millions.
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Search engines are much more extensive than directories, but are often
mixed with more junk and irrelevant sites.
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Use Search Engines for locating very specific or detailed information
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Different search engines will find different information
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Use a variety of search engines
1. Select clear key words and synonyms. Avoid common words except within
a phrase with more specialized words. Type the words and press return or
click on Search, find, get, etc.
2. Check number of matches found. Large numbers usually mean that you
will need to refine your search. However, you may still find some good
matches on the first few pages.
3. Look over the descriptions and click on only those that sound relevant.
Skip over the junk. Once on the selected web page, quickly determine if
it is related to what you are actually looking for. If not, click on Back
and look for other links.
4. If the search engine shows an option for similar sites, you
can click on those that seem close to what you are looking for. You can
always go back to the original search with the BACK button if it
leads you on a wild goose chase.
5. Refine key words according to search results. Add additional words,
synonyms, abbreviations, and special characters explained below.
Use of Capitalization, quotes, +, -, and * for refining searches
Searching with a word capitalized means that the word must be capitalized
on the web page. Use capitals only for words that are always capitalized.
For example; names, proper nouns, etc. Use lowercase to find both lowercase
and uppercase occurrences of the word on a web page.
Place quotes around a pair of words or short phrase that is likely
to appear in that sequence on the web page. Some examples: ÒJan
Brett,Ó ÒGerman Shepards,Ó Òrace horsesÓ
or Òoh say can you see by the dawnÕs early light.Ó
* Use an * after a root word that has multiple forms, such as plurals
or endings like ed or ing. Some examples: dog*, ski*, gold*
+ Use a plus sign before a word with no space to require that that word
must be found on each web page that is included in the results.
- Use a minus sign before words that should not be on the web page.
For example: +mustang* +horse* -car* -ford
6. One of the best ways to find useful information is to use a search
engine to find a few good web pages related to your topic and then follow
links on those pages to related information.
7. Some search engines allow you to choose the parts of the Internet
to search for example. just the Web, Newsgroups or just images. Use these
features when appropriate.
8. Keep ClarisWorks or other word processor open for typing notes while
searching.
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Copy and paste site locations and descriptions into ClarisWorks and save.
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You can then copy and paste locations back to Netscape when browsing at
a later time.
For Educational Use Only
All Rights Reserved, Linda J. Burkhart
email: linda@Lburkhart.com
Web site: http://www.Lburkhart.com
Updated: March 1998
