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Searching the Internet |
Searching is different from surfing. When you surf you are not looking for anything in particular. When you search you have a specific item in mind and are looking for that information.
To do a search you must first choose a Search Engine, Subject Directory, or Multi-search engine. Below is a list of good search sites.
Search Engines
| http://www.northernlight.com | http://www.hotbot.com | http://www.excite.com |
| http://www.altavista.digital.com | http://www.infoseek.com | http://www.lycos.com |
Subject Directories
| http://www.yahoo.com | http://www.yahooligans.com |
| http://www.askjeeves.com | http://www.ajkids.com |
Multi-Search Engines
| http://www.dogpile.com | http://www.google.com |
| http://www.metacrawler.com | http://www.savvysearch.com/ |
Cluster Site: www.clusty.com
Different Types of Searches
Most people conduct simple searches using words or phrases without quotation marks or other search strategies. For example, if you wanted to find information on the Appalachian Mountain region and its culture and typed Appalachian Mountains, this is what you would find:
| HotBot | 93,625 results |
| Yahoo | 430,000 results |
| 283,000 results |
I don't think anyone would want to look through that many results to find what they were looking for. Let's refine that search.
By simply placing quotation marks around the exact phrase we're looking for we can narrow our search by quite a bit. Here are search results for "Appalachian Mountains".
| HotBot | 35,135 results |
| Yahoo | 163,000 results |
| 99,800 results |
A Boolean search is when you combine two or more concepts into one search. Use the words OR, AND, NEAR, or NOT in all capitals for this type of search. These are the Boolean search results for "Appalachian Mountains" AND "culture".
| HotBot | 5,632 results |
| Yahoo | 25,100 results |
| 14,300 results |
You may even want to do an advance search. Most Search Engines will have a link to their Advanced Search sites.
***Choose a topic and choose some of the search sites listed here and see the different results you come up with. When time is up click the back button and wait for instructions from your teacher.