WebSearch Tips

Be Precise! Following these tips will help.

	Boolean Search
	Other Hints
	Ways to Evaluate or Refine Your Hits
	Having Trouble Forming Your Search?
	Domain Names
	Evaluate the Pages You Do Find

Boolean Search: A search in which Boolean logic and Boolean operators are used.

Boolean Operators are: AND, OR, NOT

Boolean AND: Narrows your search to include documents that contain BOTH keywords.

Al AND Gore

Boolean OR: Broadens your search to include ANY of the keywords.

	Use for alternative spellings such as Chanukah OR Hanukkah.
	Use for common misspellings such as Klu Klux Klan OR Ku Klux Klan.
	Some systems assume OR, so religious beliefs may be treated as religious OR beliefs.

Boolean NOT: Narrows search by excluding one meaning of a word.

	cowboys BUT NOT Dallas
	Gold Rush AND NOT Alaska

Nesting: By combining Boolean words with parentheses, you can perform multiple tasks at once.

Saturn AND (car OR automobile) is useful for synonyms

Truncation: Searches on the root of the word adding different word endings or plurals.

	*Educat searches educator, education, educational, educated ...**
	Some engines truncate automatically, so tribe may also retrieve tribes and tribal
	Other engines recognize that the plural tribes should also retrieve the variants tribe and tribal.

Controls:

By adding + or - in front of a word you are saying that the word MUST or MUST NOT be included in the "hits," another name for the results of your search.

	Pocahontas - Disney (information about the woman NOT discussing the Disney movie)
	Pocahontas + Disney (information about the woman in the Disney movie)

Phrase: Searches a phrase or words that have a unique meaning when linked:

	"Wounded Knee" - you add the quotes
	Michael FOLLOWED BY Jackson
	(Westward Expansion) - you add the parenthesis
	Some engines treat two words together as Bill OR Clinton
	Engines may not recognize certain punctuation
	Some engines drop common words or one-letter words within phrases, so a search for the phrase vitamin A becomes equivalent to searching for vitamin and a search for New Orleans becomes Orleans.

Proximity: Searches one word nearby another word.

	tribal gaming
	Indian NEAR casinos

Other Hints:

Case Sensitive: Most engines do not recognize capital letters.

	Newt and newt (the politician and the salamander) are treated identically.
	AIDS and aids (the disease and the verb) are treated identically

Searching Specific Fields: Searches only specific parts of web pages, such as the words on the browser's title bar (the document's title) or the first heading. If you have the choice of title or full text, choose full text especially if you are having trouble finding information.

Other Ways to Evaluate or Refine your Hits

Key word in context (KWIC): Read the words around your key word, the context can help you determine if the information is relevant.

Relevance: The engine calculates how well the hits match your search request and ranks them in order of relevance. Pages which have your keywords in the heading or first paragraph are ranked high. Pages in which your keywords appear frequently are ranked high.

Query by Example: Engine has an option of asking for similar pages when you find a good hit.

Having trouble forming your search?

Natural Language: When it is hard for you to design your search precisely, some engines allow you to ask for information as if you were thinking aloud.

"I want to know about the treaties that Native Americans made when they went to reservations" is treated as treaties AND Native Americans AND reservations.

Power or Advanced Searching: Some search engines have this as an option. It really is assisted Boolean Searching.

Meta Search Engines: These are search engines that search multiple sites. They tell you which search engine found the information for them. They are better than engines that only search their own site. Search engines are constantly changing format so it is difficult to name specific ones.

Domain Names:

Know your domain names. The domain is the part of an Internet address that comes just after the http:// or the end of an email address. i.e. htsdc.org. The most common are: .edu-education; .gov-government; .org-organization; .net-network; .mil-military; .com-commercial. When researching, be wary of commercial sites!

Evaluate the Web Page

Now that you have found a web site, evaluate it. A good web page:

	gives the author and how to contact them
	is objective
	gives bibliographic information if relevant
	gives date of the last update.