This material has been prepared to accompany the book "Searching and Researching on the Internet and the World Wide Web, Fourth Edition" (ISBN 1-59028-036-9) by Karen Hartman and Ernest Ackermann, and published by Franklin, Beedle and Associates, Incorporated, Wilsonville OR, ©2004. No part of this may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transcribed without permission of the publisher.

Summary

Search engines are information retrieval systems that allow us to search the vast collection of resources on the Internet and the World Wide Web. A search engine consists of three components: a computer program called a spider or robot that retrieves hyperlinks attached to documents, a database that indexes these documents, and software that allows users to enter keywords in search forms to obtain ranked results.

Each search engine database is unique and accesses its database differently. Even though many search engine databases claim to cover as much of the Web as possible, the same search performed in more than one database never returns the exact same results. If you want to do a thorough search, you should become familiar with a few of the different search engines. Toward this end, it is important to understand the major search features, such as Boolean logic, phrase searching, truncation, and others before you get online. It is also necessary to read each search engine’s documentation before you enter the search request in the search form. You may want to check the documentation often, since search engines are constantly changing their search and output features.

It can help to try your search in a meta-search tool if you’re not overly concerned about obtaining precise and comprehensive results. That way, you can gather hits from several databases at once.

In this chapter, we introduced the basic search strategy, a 10-step procedure that can help you formulate search requests, submit them to search engines, and modify the results retrieved. We have focused on the major search engines on the World Wide Web, but there are several hundred smaller search engines on the Web that search smaller databases. We’ll discuss these in some detail in Chapter 6, “Specialized Databases.” Our intent in this chapter was to give you a foundation in searching any database, no matter whether it is large or small, fee-based or not. All of the steps in the basic search strategy apply to any database.

Selected Terms Used in This Chapter

Exercises and Projects

1. Using the advanced search mode in AltaVista, http://altavista.com, and in All the Web, http://alltheweb.com, look for relevant resources on the following topics:

a. The life expectancy of a Sun Conure.

b. Mary Kingsley’s travels in Africa.

c. Maria Mitchell’s contributions to astronomy

Write down the titles of the first three Web pages retrieved by each search engine. Were any of these the same in the two search engines? Write down the search expression you used in each database.

2. Sometimes it is helpful to look for specific types of Web sites about a topic. Go to Google at http://www.google.com and look for Web pages about the inventor Nikola Tesla. Can you tell how many results are found? Now go to Google’s advanced search page and do the same search, limiting your results to domains that end with .edu. How many results do you find now? Change your search to look for results with the .gov domain which were updated in the last year. How many results do you find?

3. Find the most recent annual report and a mission statement for Pfizer. What would be the best strategy to use to find this information?

a. Go to Teoma at http://www.teoma.com. What search expression(s) did you use at Teoma to find the annual report and mission statement? Give the URL’s of the page(s) where they are found.

b. Try the same search in Google at http://www.google.com. Which search engine gave you more relevant results?

4. Look for information on how genetically altered corn is affecting Monarch butterflies.

a. First, write down your search strategy. What keywords will you use? What other words might be used instead of “genetically altered?” What search expression will you start with?

b. Try your search at MSN, http://www.msn.com. How many results did you find? Go to the first three sites listed. How relevant are they to your search? Give the URLs of the sites you visited. Do you need to modify your search expression?

5. Virtual Humans have become a topic of interest. Besides being the stuff of speculative fiction, they are becoming the stuff of reality!

a. Go to Google at http://www.google.com and search for virtual humans. How many results do you find? Look at some of the first ten sites in your results list. What is a virtual human? Give the URL of the site where you found your answer.

b. Now search for pages that show Peter Plantec’s contribution to the field of virtual humans. What was your search expression? How many results did you find? Who is Peter Plantec? Give the URL of the page where you found the answer.

6. Using the advanced search mode in Alta Vista, http://altavista.com, look for information on how mad cow disease (also known as Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) causes Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans.

a. Write down your search expression and the total number of results. Do you need to modify your search expression?

b. Were your results relevant to your request? Write down three of the most relevant titles and their URLs.

7. Go to MSN at http://www.msn.com, to find comparison studies of the drugs venlafaxine XR and fluoxetine. What search expression did you use? Go to the first three Web sites listed. What are the brand names of these drugs? Give the titles and URLs of the three sites you visited. Which was most relevant?

8. Just as the Web is constantly changing, search engines do as well. Go to Lycos at http://www.lycos.com and do a search for comparisons and reviews of search engines. Scan through the search results and go to the most promising sites. Give the titles and URLs of the sites you visited. Which was the best? Why? You may want to put one of these sites in your list of favorites or bookmarks. (A good site for keeping up with the rapid pace of change in search engines is Search Engine Watch at http://www.searchenginewatch.com. You can even subscribe to a free email newsletter at the site to stay up to date!)

9. From cuneiform writing to the printing press, written communication kept changing and becoming more pervasive. By the 19 th Century, a new invention made a big difference. Try a search for the history of the fountain pen.

a. Who invented it? When did the invention take place?

b. Tell what search engine you used, what search expression you used, and give the URL of the site where you found your answer.

This material has been prepared to accompany the book "Searching and Researching on the Internet and the World Wide Web, Fourth Edition" (ISBN 1-59028-036-9) by Karen Hartman and Ernest Ackermann, and published by Franklin, Beedle and Associates, Incorporated, Wilsonville OR, ©2004. No part of this may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transcribed without permission of the publisher.