Module 3: Retrieve Relevant Information, Find Internet Sources (1 page 1) what's this?
| Use Electronic Databases | Use Library Catalog | Find Internet Sources | Learn about Alternative Methods of Research |
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Searching the Internet can seem a daunting and overwhelming task, but many tools exist to help you in your search. You’re most likely to use three of these tools often in your search: directories, search engines, and metasearch engines. Let’s look at each of these tools individually. |
Directories
Directories are also known as subject directories or website directories.
Two common directories are Yahoo! (http://www.yahoo.com) and Lycos (http://www.lycos.com).
The strength of directories is that they are compiled and indexed by humans.
Directories generally present you with major categories, and your choices
lead to the categories becoming more and more specific. For example, if
you choose “Games” in Lycos’ Website Directory, you’ll be able to decide whether you want to learn more about board games, card games, or party games (among many others). If you decide you want to learn more about card games, you’ll
find more choices, including Whist, Bridge, and Spades. Essentially, you
receive increasingly specific categories with each decision you make.
Directories you may want to try include Yahoo!, LookSmart, and Open Directory.
Search Engines
Search engines do keyword or phrase searches of a database (not the entire
World Wide Web but the portion of it stored within that particular engine’s database). Your keywords as well as the use of Boolean operators influence your list of results. The structure of individual search engines also will influence the results and the ranking of your search. Search engines may rank the items in your search by the title of the website, the first heading on the web page, META tags, page popularity, and so on. And, unlike a directory, there’s
no human making decisions about categories of information. Additionally,
keywords are often case sensitive (meaning CAR, Car, and car may result
in different results) and correct spelling may be important to maximize
the effectiveness of your search.
Search engines will, however, search more of the web than most other tools for finding information online. You’ll benefit the most from search engines by reading the Frequently Asked Questions or help files to see how the search engine “works.” Two examples of search engines are Excite (http://www.excite.com) and Google (http://www.google.com).
It can be very helpful to “get to know” one search engine—you’ll get better and better at searching (and get better results) as you increase your knowledge of the search engine itself. But, for items like research papers, you will want to try more than one search engine in your search to increase the likelihood of finding valuable sources. You may also want to try a metasearch engine.
Metasearch Engines
Metasearch engines are search engines that submit your keywords to several
search engines. While metasearch engines sound like a good idea, they do
have drawbacks. Metasearch engines collect the first few results from each
search engine to display for you, which may leave out valuable information
in your search. Two metasearch engines include Dogpile (http://dogpile.com/)
and Metacrawler (http://metacrawler.com/).
Metasearch engines you may want to try include Metacrawler, Ixquick, SurfWax, Dogpile, and ProFusion.
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Copyright 2003 by the Academic Center, the University of Houston-Victoria,
and Summer Leibensperger.
Created 2003 by Summer Leibensperger.
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