Search Strategies and Information

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Internet Browsing Exercise

Keyword Searching Exercise

Students Guide to Research with the WWW

Evaluation Central

Most writers agree an important part of the research process is the way it modifies our thinking about an issue. Searching in some ways parallels this process. If you conceive your project too broadly or if you search the Web too bluntly, you're going to receive mixed results.

We searched ^AltaVista with the term religion. The returns ranged from personal pages to church information to sociological essays. You can get a feel for a topic by exploring these broad returns. But you also want to work toward sharpening your research angle.

Try articulating your research project in key phrases and with a few specific terms. When we searched ^Lycos with the terms religion parenting and punishment We got information on parenting approaches, Quaker discipline and religious freedom

You might develop a list of potential search terms. Consider alternative words, synonyms, or specific groups, events or people related to the topic. Instead of using religion as a key term, we queried ^AltaVista for

scientology and parenting

baptist and parenting

You can also often exclude items from a search. If your search for scientology was returning information about medicine, but you were interested instead in discipline, then you could screen out those items. At ^AltaVista the terms scientology and parenting but not medicine brought back one tenth the results.

Different search engines allow you to combine and exclude terms in different ways--on AltaVista we used + and - signs. Familiarize yourself with the operations at the site before you submit your query.

So searching is somewhat like focusing and developing an angle. Initially, you may wade through lots of information, but you can sharpen your focus as you work. Once you latch on to a topic, explore alternative ways of looking at the issue. As you do so, think of alternative search terms. Use specific terms and try different search engines. Finally, be sure to save and document materials that you find. Since resources change on the Net, saving files may be the only way to retrieve them later.

Keep these strategies in mind and you'll be in good shape as you move on to the search engines.