Searching the Internet

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Searching the Internet

• Created for
• School District 45, DuPage County

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Searching the Internet is not Surfing the
Internet!
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Not all the information that exists in the world
is on the Internet ANDNot all the information
on the Internet is accurate (Kotsch
2004).Search Smart
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An hour on the web might not answer a question
that you could find in a few minutes by using a
reference book.Use the best resource for the
job!
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Search Strategies

• How do you find what you need?
• Libraries and department stores are planned.
• But, no one is in charge of organizing the
  Internet.
• So.well prepared searches will eliminate useless
  hits and wasted time.

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Search Strategies

• Use keywords
• Be specific youll get better results
• Use correct spelling
• Punctuation doesnt matter
• However quotation marks do matter (see later)
• Keep it simple
• Describe what you need in as few words as
  possible
• Google is limited to 10 words, anything after 10
  is ignored
• Use words that are most likely to appear on the
  website
• headache instead of my head hurts
• Some websites allow the use of
• Wildcard searches (see next few slides)
• Boolean operators (see next few slides)

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Phrase Search ()

• Using quotation marks will bring back the exact
  phrase you are searching
• Be careful when using quotation marks
• Robert Lee will miss anything with Robert E Lee

Search Strategies
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The minus sign (-)

• Used immediately before a word will exclude it
  from your results
• Bears Chicago
• Dont confuse the minus sign (-) with a hyphen
  (-)
• Anti-virus software

Search Strategies
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Search within a specific website

• siteedu (colleges universities)
• sitegov (government agencies)
• siteorg (organizations)
• Use this to limit your search results to certain
  types of websites

Search Strategies
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Fill in the blanks ()

• Also called the Wildcard search (see later)
• The is used to replace any unknown words in the
  search phrase
• Coca-Cola was invented in by
• Great to use when you only know part of a song
  title or the lyrics

Search Strategies
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Fill in the blanks ()
Search Strategies
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Wildcard Searches ()

• A special symbol () (Shift8) which allows you
  to search for several words that begin the same
  but may have different endings.

Educator Educate Education Educational
Educat
Google uses the for the Fill in the blank
search
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Boolean Operators

• Words such as AND, OR, and NOT that are used to
  combine terms to broaden or narrow the results of
  a search.

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Broaden a search (OR)

• Using the word or will broaden a search
• Use or if two words may be used interchangeably
• colleges or universities

colleges
universities
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Narrow a search (AND)

• Using and will only provide hits for sites which
  have BOTH of the words.
• heart and disease

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Narrow a search (NOT)

• Using not narrows the search by telling the
  search engine to exclude certain words
• You can also use a minus sign -
• schools not middleschools -middle

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Results

• The best results will appear on the first page or
  two of hits
• No two search engines are alike. Try another
  search engine, or rephrase your keywords to get
  better results.

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Search Engines
And many others.
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Advanced Search Strategies
(you Might use)
define Provides a definition of a word defineabundent
related Finds pages related to or similar to the selected site relatedwww.wikipedia.com
filetype Searches for a particular kind of file (ppt) PowerPoint (doc) Word filetypedoc
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Lets Practice Together
Search Term of Results
dogs
collie
border collie
border collie
border collie siteorg
border collie siteorg -wikipedia
border collie siteorg wikipedia rescue
border collie siteorg wikipedia rescue
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Class ActivityThe Game (Watkins 2006,
2008)

• See The Google Game Handout on the Internet
  Safety Page

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Works Cited

• Google search basics Basic search help
  http//www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer
  .py?hlenanswer134479
• Google search basics More search help
  http//www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer
  .py?answer136861
• Kotsch. (2004) Preparing to Search the Internet.
  http//www.libraryinstruction.com/SearchingtheInte
  rnet.ppt
• Watkins, K. (2008). Return of the Google game.
  School Library Journal, 54 (5), 46-48.
  http//www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6555
  545.html
• Watkins, K. (2006). The Google game. School
  Library Journal, 52 (1), 52-54.
  http//www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6296
  500.html