Web Search Techniques
- Here is a sample
workshop handout that you can use to help you search the Web more effectively.
Case Sensitivity
Some search tools are case sensitive. If you search using upper case letters, case sensitive search tools will only retrieve words in upper case letters. If you search using upper and lower case letters, case sensitive search tools will only retrieve those words. However, if you search using all lower case letters, even when searching acronyms and proper names, both case sensitive and non-case sensitive search tools will locate all possible word-case variations. Use upper, mixed case searching purposely to limit your results.- Search example
- "chinese
food"
- "Consumer Education"
- "Consumer Education"
- Retrieves
- Chinese
food for health
- Vitamins found in Chinese food
- Consumer Education tips
- The History of Consumer Education
- Vitamins found in Chinese food
- Does not retrieve
- Food cooked
Chinese style
- Beginning consumer education
- Consumer education for kids
- Beginning consumer education
The AND Operator
AND searches for all the words located anywhere in a document. AND limits your results. It is the default operator for most meta-search tools.- Search example
- king AND
dream
- Retrieves
- Dr. King
and his Dream
- M.L. King - I have a dream
- M.L. King - I have a dream
- Does not retrieve
- Disney's
Lion King
- ML King biography
- Dream states in psychology
- ML King biography
The OR Operator
OR searches for some or all words present in a document. Think of an OR search and an "either/or/all" search. OR expands your results. It is the default operator for many search engines- Search example
- king OR
dream
- Retrieves
- Disney's
Lion King
- Dr. King and his Dream
- Dream states in psychology
- M.L. King - I have a dream
- ML King biography
- Dr. King and his Dream
The NOT Operator
NOT eliminates words that must not be in a document. NOT limits your results and eliminates a lot of non-useful results.- Search example
- king NOT
dream
- Retrieves
- Disney's
Lion King
- ML King biography
- ML King biography
- Does not retrieve
- Dr. King
and his Dream
- M.L. King - I have a dream
Word Stemming
Use an asterisk (*) at the end, or in the middle, of a full or partial word to search for all variants of that word. Word stemming expands your results, but in a very focused, useful way.- Search examples
- woman*
- wom*
- wom* NOT womb*
- wom*n
- wom*n*
- wom*
- Retrieves
- woman, womans,
woman's, womanizers
- woman, women, wombats, womb
- woman, women's (not womb or wombat)
- woman, women
- woman's, womens'
- woman, women, wombats, womb
Phrase Searching
Phrase searching searches for words (and only those words) in the exact order you type them. Phrase searching limits your results, but is sometimes too strict of a search and eliminates many valuable documents.- Search example
- "chinese
food"
- "Consumer Education"
- "Consumer Education"
- Retrieves
- Chinese
food for health
- Vitamins found in Chinese food
- Consumer Education tips
- The History of Consumer Education
- Vitamins found in Chinese food
- Does not retrieve
- Food cooked
Chinese style
- Education for consumers
- Beginning consumer education
- Education for consumers
The NEAR Operator
NEAR searches for words which are close to each other but not necessarily right next to each other, nor in the order typed. AltaVista allows you to specify the number of words that can be between words (Example: king NEAR/3 dream)- Search examples
- chinese
NEAR food
- Consumer NEAR Education
- Consumer NEAR Education
- Retrieves
- Food for
Chinese women
- Chinese food for health
- Consumer Education tips
- Education for Consumer Safety
- Chinese food for health
- Does not retrieve
- The Chinese
secret to longevity and good health are light daily exercise and
good food preparation.
- Consumer awareness lessons and their role in both elementary and secondary education.
Nesting
Nesting searches for word variations with one search. Nesting expands your results, but focuses them at the same time.- Search examples
- legitimate
AND (theater OR theatre)
- Canton NEAR (Ohio OR OH)
- lesson* NEAR plan* AND (math OR art)
- art AND ((New York) OR Chicago OR London)
- Canton NEAR (Ohio OR OH)
- Retrieves
- History
of the legitimate theater
- London's Legitimate Theatre
- Canton OH companies
- A short history of Canton and Columbus Ohio
- Lesson planning for math teachers
- Art lessons, plans, and activities
- The New York art gallery scene
- Art and artists in London's Soho district
- Chicago: the art of snow removal
- London's Legitimate Theatre
Combining Search Operators
You can combine operators in many different ways to create focused results.- Search examples
- king AND
dream NOT burger NOT elvis
- ohio AND college* OR universit*
- Canton NEAR (Ohio OR OH)
- lesson* NEAR plan* AND (math OR art)
- ohio AND college* OR universit*
- Retrieves
- Martin Luther
King - I have a dream
- The dream of Martin Luther King in the 1990's
- Ohio college grads
- College libraries (Ohio)
- A short history of Canton and Columbus Ohio
- Canton OH companies
- Lesson planning for math teachers
- Art lessons, plans, and activities
- The dream of Martin Luther King in the 1990's
- Does not retrieve
- Win a dream
date with Elvis, the king!
- I dream of owning a Burger King restaurant
- College and university libraries
- Canton OR.. home of the Ducks
- A physics lesson plan for homeschoolers
- I dream of owning a Burger King restaurant
Other Search Techniques
Open an additional browser window so you can search in one, and work in the other, while your search tool is retrieving results.Use the "subject heading" technique to help you locate websites on a specific subject, or to help you limit the number of results your search retrieves. For example, combining two phrases "Chicago Bulls" and "basketball team" (which is the subject heading that would describe the Bulls) eliminates information about the arena where the team plays, as well as results related to the Chicago stockyards and bulls as animals.
Another library-related technique is corporate entry. Using the corporate entry for a group or person, rather than the common name, will help you locate official information more quickly, while often eliminating information created by others about the person or organization. For example, the official name of the Cleveland Indians is the Cleveland Indians Baseball Club. Use it to locate the official team page very quickly. This search also eliminate many fan pages and other sources of information that might not be authoritative.
If your results are in a foreign language you may be able translate them to English using AltaVista's translator which converts webpages from Italian, Spanish, French, German, and Portuguese into English (and vice versa).
-
