Exploring the World Wide Web
If you are not familiar with the World Wide Web, you may first want to explore the Internet and WWW Information link from this course’s homepage.
Conducting a Net Search
The Internet provides a rich resource for gathering information on a variety of topics. However, finding the specific information you need is not always easy. Search engines were created to facilitate the search and retrieval of information on various topics. They allow keyword searching of Web documents. If you are trying to find a particular site or document or just looking for a resource list on a subject, you can use these mechanisms to search for information in many different ways. Some search titles or headers of documents, others search the documents themselves, and still others search other indexes or directories.
Different engines are useful for different things; deciding on a particular one for all your searching needs may not be a good idea. Consider using the "bookmark" or "favorites" feature of your browser to have quick access to several search engines. These sites are popular, and heavy traffic will occasionally keep you from getting to your first choice every time.
Listed below are some of the popular search engines that search the Web:
Searching on the Net
In planning an Internet search, it is useful to start with a broad concept and narrow it as you begin to find the information. Since there is very little standardization in Internet indexing, it is also useful to try synonyms for your search terms. You might get more useful results by entering a multi-word query rather than a single word. For instance, entering "education" will find 1000 items, but "special education" will find 505 items. The results will vary depending on the search engine and will change from day to day as documents are added and deleted from search engine databases.
Before you begin an Internet search, it is a good idea to follow the search engine's "Help" link to find out which search operators work on that search engine. For example, most search engines allow the use plus [+] and minus [-] signs and quotation marks ["..."] to include or exclude certain terms in a Net search. However, they differ in the syntax of how these operators are to be used.
- Use a plus sign to include a particular term: To find references to special education, you should enter the following in the indicated field:
+special +education
- Use a minus sign to exclude a term: To find all education resources not relating to special education, request a search for
+education -special
- Use quotation marks to require that the key words be found exactly as they are:
"special education"
Boolean Searches
Some search engines support Boolean searching, either as a standard or as an advanced search technique. Boolean and proximity search operators can be used in multi-word queries. The most common ones are: AND, OR, NOT. These operators narrow your search and make the results more useful.
The chart below explains Boolean search operators.
| Boolean & Proximity Operators | Search Term | What
the Search Engine Reads |
NOT |
education NOT special | Will search for documents with the word "education" which do not contain the word "special." The result will be a list of documents which excludes the word "special." Please note that some search engines need the words "BUT" or "AND" with the operator "NOT." |
| AND | education AND special | Will search for documents with the words "education" and "special." |
| NEAR | education NEAR special | Will search for documents with the words "education" and "special" within a specific range of characters or words. This operator is available only on certain search engines. |
| OR | grizzly OR bears |
Will search for documents which contain either of the two words. |
| (...) | internet AND (pc OR computer) | Will search documents which contain the word "internet" and either "pc" or "computer." Without the use of parentheses, the search engine will have found documents with the words "internet" and "pc" or documents with the word "computer." |
| "..." | "hybrid roses" | Will search for documents which contain the words as typed. Result will be documents which have the word "hybrid" followed by a space and the word "roses". |
Practicing – Your Own Net Search
Now it is time to conduct your own Net search. Select one or more of the different search engines and type in the following:
+"4-H" +"youth volunteers" +"child development"
(Type the quotation marks, too, so that the search engine "knows" that you are searching for the exact phrase.)
The search engine will probably retrieve a long list of sites. Explore several different sites on this topic and select the one that you like the most.