|
What is
a "search engine"?
|
A search engine is used
on the internet in order to find information you are looking
for. You can search for articles in professional journals,
lesson plans, scholarships and almost anything you can
imagine.
|
What is
"Information Overload"?
|
If you want to experience
information overload, go to "Google" (the most popular
search engine on the web) and enter "salmon recipes" and
you
will receive 198,000 links to web sites that have "salmon recipes". Information
overload occurs after about 1-hour of using the Google links to find that perfect
recipe. |
| How much
information is produced every year for the internet? |
Inc. magazine, Jan. 1,
1999
How much time people waste looking for lost information, how fast the World Wide
Web is growing, and other statistics from the front lines of
the info glut. |
| Can I refine
a search? |
You can enter a
word or phrase to search for the topic you want. For example, "middle
school teacher resources" yields more information than "resources for
middle school teachers". i.e. You need to think about what is the most
important part of your search. When you place teachers at the end of
the search, it looks first for resources - which is almost everything. |
| How accurate
is the information I find. |
You have to
realize that a search engine returns results that match your criteria,
it has no way of investigating whether or not the information is
accurate. The best defense against this is to have a basic knowledge of
just what you are searching for. "Shakespeare's life" search returns
158,000 links. Be careful, be smart. |
| Search tips
with examples: |
Using the +
symbol
Sometimes, you want to make sure that a search
engine finds pages that have all the words you enter, not just some of
them. The + symbol lets you do this.
Example: Clinton+Starr
Example: clinton+starr
Using the
-symbol
Sometimes, you want a search engine to find pages that have
one word on them but not another word. The - symbol lets you do this.
Example: Clinton-Lewinsky
Narrowing your search
Imagine that you want to plan a camping vacation
to Yosemite National Park
1st search:
Yosemite
This will give you off-target results.
Better way to search:
yosemite+camping+reservations
|
| Final tips: |
Entering long
phrases
Google and many other search engines now allow you to enter a series of
words.
Example:
"teaching colleges"+"philosophy courses" |
| Are all the
search engines alike? |
Some search
engines specialize in journals, news, educational journals, library
contents. Look on our search engine page
to find those "specialty" search engine sites. |
| What is a
meta or mega search engine? |
Meta or mega
search engines give you the ability to find your topic of choice by
using several search engines at once. |
