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Searching the Web

 

COME UP WITH A PLAN

If you are looking for specific information, you are going to approach the World Wide Web as you would approach a periodical database or the Library.  You want to develop your topic into a research question, come up with search terms, pick a search engine or other web search tool suitable for your search, and be able to enter your search terms in a syntax that is acceptable for that search engine or other search tool.  Then you want to quickly scan your entries to pick the most suitable web sites.  Finally, you will quickly evaluate your web sites.  This sheet focuses on developing the search strategy.

DEVELOP A SEARCH STRATEGY

1.  Have a topic in mind.
2.  Narrow down your topic and/or make it more specific.
3.  State a research question for your project in a sentence.
4.  Pull out terms from your research question.
5.  Come up with related terms (synonyms, etc.)

Here are two examples:
 

Topic: gun control Narrowed down: gun control and gender Research Question:  Do women or men tend to be in favor of gun control?  OR women and gun control-- those in favor and those against	Search terms:  women gun control Related terms:  Woman, men, gender, firearms, law, Million Mom March, etc.
Topic: Madonna (rock singer) Narrowed down:  Madonna and her music Made More Specific: Madonna and her music and its influence over culture Research Question: What impact has Madonna's music had in our culture in the United States?  OR What impact has Madonna's music had in the culture of Argentina?	Search terms:  Madonna, music, culture, United States (or Argentina) Related terms:  Madonna the Singer (not the religious icon), rock and roll, material girl, dance music, Los Angeles, New York, Buenos Aires, South America, North America, America

 

FORMULATE A SEARCH STATEMENT

For any database searching, you need to formulate your search terms so that the database knows whether you want to seek every one of them, any of them, or some and not others.
 
 

You want both women and gun control to appear in your results.	Women AND gun control
You want either guns or firearms to appear in your results.	Guns OR firearms
You want Madonna but not the word, religion, in your results.	Madonna NOT religion

.

FOR SEARCH ENGINES, USE THE SEARCH SYNTAX SUITABLE FOR THEM

Traditionally, databases accepted searches as stated above.  However, Search Engines have ended up being peculiar databases.  Some search for ANY word you enter.  They CANNOT read words strung together (i.e. "gun control") as phrases.  They also require symbols to state what is REQUIRED in a search and what is NOT.  Please take a note of the differences.  Not all search engines use the symbols mentioned below, but most now do.  What is most important to remember is that SOME search engines search for ANY word entered, so you WILL want to use these symbols mentioned below.  
 

+	for every time a word MUST appear on a web page
-	for every time a word SHOULD NOT appear on a web page
"your phrase here "	Quotation marks (") surrounding more than one word used to let database know you only want THAT EXACT PHRASE to appear on a web page

It is important you understand the concept mentioned below, so you can understand how you are phrasing your search in a search engine.
 

+women  + guns  [Words must appear in search]	Both the words "Women" and "guns" MUST appear in the web page. Notice the plus sign MUST appear before EVERY word.
+madonna -religion	The minus sign eliminates every instance the word "Religion" appears, however this search could also eliminate relevant sites as well.  Any aspects of culture that also includes religion, for example.
"gun control"	In order to find ONLY instances where "gun control" appears in a phrase, you MUST surround your phrase with quotes.
Guns firearms  Guns OR firearms    (ANY word search)	In some search engines, "OR" is not needed.  However, when it is, use "or" in caps.  Remember "OR" is used when you want EITHER word to appear in your search.
+women +"gun control"	Notice a plus sign is necessary BEFORE phrases too
women +"gun control"	When entering a search like this you are not REQUIRING the word, "Women" to appear
gun control	This search is saying find pages that EITHER have the word "gun" OR "control"

 

Advanced Searching:

Truncation (or Wildcards): This technique allows you to search for variations of words, where the ENDINGS of words may vary.  For example, you may be interested in finding web pages on music, musician, and musicians: music*

TRUNCATION SYMBOLS CAN VARY FOR EACH SEARCH ENGINE AND DATABASE.  In most, truncation usually will be the asterisk symbol (*).  Sometimes, the truncation symbol may be a question mark (?) or exclamation point (!).  Read the Help Screens to find out how to truncate.

Nesting:  For now, do not worry about this strategy.  Though there are times you may want to "nest."    NOTE:  Not all search engines support nesting.

Example:  +Madonna +("rock and roll" OR "dance music")

The search engine will search for ALL instances where Madonna appears, but ONLY when the web page ALSO has EITHER the PHRASES "rock and roll" OR "dance music"

SELECTING A SEARCH ENGINE

There are so many search engines, you may at first feel overwhelmed.  But when choosing a search engine, keep in mind what they can do and what they contain.  This is not as easy as it seems.  Look at the Web Guides and Search Engines hand out.  You have to think quite a bit which search engines will work best.   The general rule is be prepared to search in more than one search engine, scan your results on the first few pages, and quickly determine if the search engine suits your purpose.

Still, you can also before even selecting a search engine, keep in mind what it does and what is its focus.

Examples:

Overture only lists web sites it has been paid to list.  What odds are you going to find academic sites on Madonna versus commercial sites?  The answer is "not likely" or small.  Overture acquired these now defunct search engines: AlltheWeb (FAST search), Alta Vista, Webcrawler, NBCi (Snap), Go (InfoSeek).  It is now owned by Yahoo! which now ALSO uses this practice (mixed within their directory).  Excite is also owned by a similar company called InfoSpace.

Yahoo! has a web directory which you can browse by subjects.  But while it may be easy to find the web site of  the Million Mom March or women responding to the Columbine School Shooting, how easy is it to find academic-style essays on women who are for gun control after Gulf War II? Yahoo! takes months to select web sites, at least 95% must be registered directly to the company.  That's quite a time lag (assume at least a year).  Also, Yahoo! indexes only 7% of the web.  The Internet Skills course now recommends you search Open Directory or better yet a portal/meta-site instead, as Yahoo! now lists paid sites within its search results (often not indicated that they are paid!)

Google indexes a large portion of the Web and its ranking scheme so far has been considered a fairly stellar one:  ranking sites based on how often those sites have been linked by other sites.  However, unlike a subject directory, it may take awhile to find a home page to a non-profit organization or a university or a company you are seeking. 

Librarians' Index to the Internet is a subject directory to sites selected by librarians.  In this tool, you will find sites that are of considerable quality.  However, most often, you will have to search by broad terms, as LII searches only descriptions of web sites, not pages within the web sites themselves.

On the third and fourth weeks, I'll be introducing you to some indexes that will more likely lead you to academic sites.  Keep in mind, however, that they will lead you only to a small fraction as to what is available, and tend to lead you to pages that have been long established versus ones that say were created for the first time within the last year or two.
 
 
 
SCANNING YOUR RESULTS

Say you select a search engine and you enter your search strategy:
 
 

+madonna +argentina -evita -religion

Madonna and Argentina have to appear, but ONLY WHEN Evita and religion DO NOT appear

Quickly scanning your results:

 

NOTE: For this class, make sure you keep your eyes on the results screen and how it is structured. In order to be "free," many search engines contain advertisements, including paid placement links that usually are featured prominently on your search results page.  You want to ignore those as your purpose is to find information, not to buy products.  For example, in the search results screen for the subject directory, LookSmart, notice that on top the list includes Sponsored Listings above Reviewed Web Sites.  You will want to skip the "sponsored listings" as they are really advertisements.  Be prepared to scroll down for your search results!

Once you find the search engine's regular listings, ask yourself these questions:

1.  Are the titles somehow related to your topic?

2.  In the text below you will see how your words are being used in a couple of sentences. Sometimes, you will also get a description of the web site, depending on the search tool. Consider if either the sample sentences/phrases or the description is coming close to your research question.
Note:  No database is perfect.  The two sentences it picks may be the wrong ones and the site may still be very relevant

3.  Read the URL listed.

a.  Does the URL suggest the site may be academic or filled with useful information?
 
For example: does the web site end with the domain .com or .edu? If it is .com is the company one you recognize that somehow highlights education, information, quality?  For example: britannica.com is likely the Encyclopedia of Britannica while gunsforsale.com may be a commercial site that is selling firearms.

b.  Does the URL suggest it is a personal web page?

For example: a tilden symbol before what appears to be a user name.  www.berkeley.edu/~pbailey/madonna.html  may seem to be a realiable educational web page because it appears to be from UC Berkeley.  However, it is college freshman's, Priscilla Bailey's web page on her love for Madonna and her music with the latest of Madonna rumours, including Madonna's recent rendezvous in Argentina with Sean Penn that Priscilla read in the National Enquirer!  Remember Anybody can put anything on the web, regardless of usefulness, accuracy, or quality.  This site most likely is entertaining, though.

The next step is scanning the web page itself which we will talk about in the fourth and fifth weeks.  For now, remember the "Find" option available from the "Edit" pull down menu in Firefox!

(Note: remember, once again to read the search results carefully.  In the Google example listed below, unless you want news stories, you would want to skip the top.  You also would want to ignore the "sponsored links" listed on the right as they are once again, your advertisements).