Module 1: What's out there?

Using search engines

What are search engines and how do they work?
Why use different search engines?
Using AltaVista
M1 Task 6 - Natural language searching
Keyword searching
M1 Task 7 - Search strategies using keywords
M1 Task 8 - Searching on your own topic

Whole books have been written about ways to search the Internet and it is beyond the scope of this tutorial to give an in-depth treatment of the topic. On the other hand, fairly simple searches of the Internet do not have to be daunting. You can often find useful resources without too much trouble.

This section looks at search engines and how to use them effectively to find the information you need.

There is no right way to search the Internet, though some ways may be more efficient than others. A search is successful if you find what you want or something that is useful to you.

What are search engines and how do they work?

The content of a subject directory is influenced by the people who select the sites. A search engine, however, runs automated programs. When you put a query or keywords into the query (or search) box, the search engine works by sending out a 'spider' (sometimes called a 'robot' or 'webcrawler') which goes to every page that can be searched and reads it for the keywords. It uses the links on the page to find and read other pages. Pages that contain the keywords are selected. Then another program reads all the selected documents and compiles them in an index or catalogue. The entries in the index are compared to your search query and the matching results returned to you. Search engines have different programs operating these steps, which is why entering the same query into different search engines will probably give you different results. Most programs also give you some type of relevance ranking for the results.

No automated index is able to make intuitive judgements about the searcher's intentions and although search engine developers work hard to make the engines seem friendly, all they can do is work with the words supplied. Many subject directories also have keyword searching, but results may be restricted to the manually compiled databases. Yahoo! provides a keyword search function that searches its own categories first and then presents results from a search using the Google (http://www.google.com/) search engine.

Most search engines only list ten to twenty sites results per page. For example, to get to all the results pages for Google, you must scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the underlined numbers. Many search engines only list a minimum number of pages per site. Some search engines limit the number of sites listed to protect bandwidth or because of the diminishing relevance of the subject matter.

According to an article by Danny Sullivan in Search Engine Watch (http://www.searchenginewatch.com/reports/sizes.html), no search engine has indexed everything on the Internet. By December 2001, according to Sullivan, the largest search engine had indexed 1.5 billion pages and could return coverage of a further 0.5 billion pages.

Why use different search engines?

All search engines find and index Internet sites, but the size of their databases and their scope and accuracy can vary considerably. Particular search engines are best suited to certain types of searches. The good points of some well-known search engines are listed below.

You can find detailed information about the best (and weakest) features of major search engines at Linda Barlow's The Spider's Apprentice: A Helpful Guide to Web Search Engines (http://www.monash.com/). Click on the link.

Debbie Abilock's Choose the Best Search for Your Information Need (http://www.noodletools.com/debbie/literacies/information/5locate/adviceengine.html) offers assistance with identifying the best search engine for your particular needs.

Most search engines have simple and advanced search options. Advanced searches make use of Boolean logic (see the section on Boolean searching searching in this tutorial). This tutorial uses mainly simple searches, as even they can be quite powerful.

Using AltaVista

AltaVista (http://www.altavista.com/) is one of the largest and most popular search engines. Like Yahoo! it also has an Australian version (http://au.altavista.com). Most of the features available in AltaVista are also available in other search engines.

AltaVista uses keyword searching, but, before looking at this further, take a brief look at natural language searching.

Natural language searching may or may not be the way of the future. For the present, it is probably more useful to look at a way you can narrow down your keyword searches.

Keyword searching

In keyword searching, you leave out any unnecessary words such as 'why', 'where', 'about', and 'in', and concentrate on the essential words that most accurately describe your topic. Most keyword searches ignore 'stop' words or common words like 'a', 'the', 'to' and 'be', but AltaVista will search on stop words. Type to be or not to be in AltaVista and compare it with the same search in Google.

There are some processes that you can follow to help you with keyword searching. When you perform your own searches on your own topic, follow the steps summarised in the table below.

Be cautious if you use the term 'art' in a search as you are likely to get a host of sites that use the term generally, such as 'the art of cooking'. Yet if you use the minus sign before 'art', you will lose a number of potentially useful sites. Consider using more specific terms, such as 'fine arts'.

Literals can be very useful for detecting direct plagiarism in student's work. Just include a suspect phrase between quote marks in a search engine to discover if work has been 'borrowed' without acknowledgement.

M1 Task 7 - Search strategies using keywords Try this example of a search in AltaVista (http://www.altavista.com) using keywords (M1 Task 7 Using AltaVista). It will take you through the steps outlined in the table above. Follow the instructions. Windows users can switch between the task page and AltaVista by using the taskbar or Alt-Tab. Macintosh users can do the same by using the Window menu in the toolbar. Print out the guide for Task 7 if you find it easier to work with a hard copy.

M1 Task 8 - Searching on your own topic Set yourself a search topic,for something useful in your classroom. Formulate your topic and relevant keywords carefully before you start to search. Using AltaVista (http://www.altavista.com), follow a similar procedure to that used in Task 7. You can print out a blank form showing the steps outlined in Task 8 if you wish (M1 Task 8 Search steps). When you find a useful site bookmark the address or record it in your notebook for later reference. You will need a collection of sites like this in Module 3. Here are some ideas for topics to search (M1 Task 8 Search ideas).