Transcript Web Searching Strategies - Santa Rosa County School District

Web Searching
Strategies
Independent Investigations for Grades
9-12, Teacher Training, and Staff
Development
Web Searching
Strategies
• The Web is huge
• Search engines make finding information much
easier when used effectively
• Search directories are a good alternative to
search engines when your topic is very general
• Don’t forget to properly cite information found
• Make searching safe for students
• Understand and teach your students how to
evaluate Web sites
© 2004 PDC, Santa Rosa County School District
Search Engines
© 2004 PDC, Santa Rosa County School District
How Search
Engines Work
• Search Engines are huge, searchable
databases of Web sites
– They search the Internet -- or select pieces of the Internet -based on important words.
– They keep an index of the words (keywords) they find, and
where they find them.
– They allow users to look for words or combinations of words
found in that index.
• “Keyword”
– A word that is entered into the search form or search "window"
of an Internet search engine to search the Web for pages or
sites about or including the word and information related to it.
© 2004 PDC, Santa Rosa County School District
How Search
Engines Work
• What are robots, spiders, and crawlers?
– Computer programs the automatically gather
information
– Spiders look at sites submitted to search engines
– Crawlers are programmed to constantly search the
web, following any and all links they come across
• Spiders
(http://computer.howstuffworks.com/search-engine1.htm)
© 2004 PDC, Santa Rosa County School District
How Search
Engines Work
• How do search engines display results?
– A list of document titles with links to the Web site
containing your keyword(s)
– The number of files located that contain your
keyword(s)
– A brief description of your keyword(s)
© 2004 PDC, Santa Rosa County School District
How Search
Engines Work
• Do different search engines produce similar
lists of titles and descriptions?
– www.google.com
– www.teoma.com
– www.altavista.com/web/
[Activity]
© 2004 PDC, Santa Rosa County School District
Word Spelling,
Meaning, and Order
• How does capitalizing letters in keywords affect
a search?
– Most engines ignore case
• How does the spelling of keywords affect a
search?
– Most suggest alternate spellings
• How does making keywords plural affect a
search?
– Most search singular forms of words as strictly that
and plural as plural.
© 2004 PDC, Santa Rosa County School District
Word Spelling,
Meaning, and Order
• How does using a synonym affect a search?
– Narrows the search
• bed versus garden plot bed
• hi-fi versus hi-fi record player phonograph
• How does the order of keywords affect a
search?
– Unless you use quotes, most engines ignore order
• flower garden and garden flower yield similar results
[Activity]
© 2004 PDC, Santa Rosa County School District
Refining a Search
• Boolean Operators
– Use to broaden or narrow your search
– AND, OR, NOT
– Also: + –
• Phrases
– Use quotation marks
– Search engine finds pages with exact word order in
quotes
© 2004 PDC, Santa Rosa County School District
Refining a Search
Boolean Operators
• How do Boolean operators affect a search?
– violence AND prevention
• reduces number of hits
– violence OR abuse AND prevention
• increases number of hits
– abuse AND prevention AND child NOT spouse
• returns child abuse prevention rather than spouse abuse
prevention
© 2004 PDC, Santa Rosa County School District
Refining a Search
Boolean Operators
• How does the minus symbol affect a search?
– If you were looking for non-surgical treatments for
glaucoma…
• glaucoma +treatment
-surgical
– If you were looking for types of rock…
• types rock -roll
© 2004 PDC, Santa Rosa County School District
Refining a Search
• How do quotation marks around keywords
affect a search?
– Reduces the number of pages
– Yields more desirable results
• types rock –”rock and roll”
• “America flag” yields approximately 2,000,000 fewer results
than American flag
© 2004 PDC, Santa Rosa County School District
Advanced Search
Menus
• How do advanced search menus work?
– Most search engines provide advanced options for
searching.
– Many of these options are simply user-friendly,
graphical versions of symbols or Boolean operators
– Advanced options are handled differently on almost
every site
– Always look for the Help, FAQ (Frequently Asked
Questions), or Advanced Search pages of the
search engine site for more details.
© 2004 PDC, Santa Rosa County School District
Advanced Search
Menus
• How do advanced search menus work?
– http://www.google.com/advanced_search
• http://www.google.com/help/refinesearch.html
– http://s.teoma.com/AdvancedSearch
• http://sp.teoma.com/docs/teoma/about/advsearchtips.html
– http://www.altavista.com/web/adv
• http://www.altavista.com/help/search/help_adv
© 2004 PDC, Santa Rosa County School District
Organizing
Keywords
• How can you make a search specific?
– Use specific, unambiguous keywords.
• migraine research instead of headache information
– Use the most unique or significant words first.
• architecture classical
– Use more keywords for more precise results.
• “US Army veteran” “World War II” Europe -Navy instead of
war vet
– Use words and quoted phrases when possible.
• architecture classical “18th century”
© 2004 PDC, Santa Rosa County School District
Word Variations
Truncation
• Truncation
– the process of typing a special symbol at the end of a
word's root form to retrieve all possible endings of that
word
– Symbols used for truncation include the asterisk (*)
and less frequently, the question mark “?”.
• e.g., child* will retrieve child, childhood, children, child's, etc.
• end truncation example: colleg* finds college, colleges,
collegium, collegial
• internal truncation example: col*r finds color, colour, colander
© 2004 PDC, Santa Rosa County School District
Word Variations
Stemming
• Stemming
– Related to truncation, stemming usually refers to the
ability of a search engine to find word variants such as
plurals, singular forms, past tense, present tense, etc.
without using truncation.
– Some only cover plural and singular forms.
– Stemming example: lights finds light, lights, lighting, lit
© 2004 PDC, Santa Rosa County School District
Word Variations
• How do search results differ when an
asterisk or question mark is used in
keywords?
– Use the asterisk "*" at the end of a search
word or string of letters to find all words
beginning with these same letters.
– For example, child* will retrieve child,
childhood, children, child's, etc.
© 2004 PDC, Santa Rosa County School District
Word Variations
Sites
• Sites
– Truncation: AltaVista (Google allows only “word * * word”
truncation)
– Represent Single Word within Phrase: AltaVista, Google
– Automatic Truncation: Yahoo!
– Word Stemming: MSN Search
• http://www.searchengineshowdown.com/features/
• http://www.searchengineshowdown.com/features/byfeature.sht
ml
• Activity: How do search results differ when an
asterisk or question mark is used in keyword?
© 2004 PDC, Santa Rosa County School District
Word Variations
• Activity:
How do search results differ when an
asterisk or question mark is used in
keyword?
© 2004 PDC, Santa Rosa County School District
Citing Web
Resources
• Using Web resources without crediting the
original author is plagiarism
• Citing Web resources is easy:
– Web Page: Author’s last name, first name. “Title of
site or page.” Name of institution or sponsoring
organization. Date of document OR date of visit to
site. <Web address>.
– Online image/video clip/sound [object]: Title or
description of [object]. Online [object]. Date of object
creation OR date of visit to site. <Web address>.
© 2004 PDC, Santa Rosa County School District
Citing Web
Resources
• What is the correct way to cite information found
on the Web?
– MLA web citation page:
http://www.mla.org/publications/style/style_faq/style_faq4.htm
– APA, MLA, and other citation styles at LIU Library Web
site:
http://www.liunet.edu/cwis/cwp/library/workshop/citation.htm
© 2004 PDC, Santa Rosa County School District
Subject Directories
• A search directory is a Web database
composed of lists of Web sites categorized by
subject.
• Best used when unsure about your exact topic
– Putting crayfish in a search engine would yield
thousands of results.
– In a search directory, you could start with the topic
related to crayfish that you are most concerned
with: science, biology or science, zoology or food, or
business
© 2004 PDC, Santa Rosa County School District
Subject Directories
Compared to
Search Engines
• What is the difference between a subject
directory and a search engine?
Search Directory
Search Engine
An index of hierarchical
menus
A database of weighted key
words
Organized by humans
Organized by programs
Smaller
Larger
Use when you’re not sure
what you want
Use when you know exactly
what you want
© 2004 PDC, Santa Rosa County School District
Subject Directories
Activity:
Do different directories produce similar lists of
titles for subjects and subtopics?
© 2004 PDC, Santa Rosa County School District
Subject Directories
Sample Sites
• Directories
– About.com - maintained by a trained volunteer
editors.
– dmoz.org - maintained by volunteer editors.
– www.dogpile.com/ - powered by infospace; search
the net. NOTE: find the words “Web Directory”
© 2004 PDC, Santa Rosa County School District
Subject Directories
“Best Of” Sites
• “Best Of” Directories
– Access Place - internet.. simple, easy to navigate
directory of high-quality sites.
http://www.accessplace.com/
– StartSpot - internet.. human editors categorize the
net thru a network of sites.
http://www.startspot.com/network/
– Top9.com - popularity.. categorized directory of the
most highly-trafficked websites. http://www.top9.com/
– WorldHot.com - popularity.. sites rated by traffic and
hits. http://www.worldhot.com/
© 2004 PDC, Santa Rosa County School District
Subject Directories
For Children
• How does the organization of directories for
kids compare with directories for adults?
– Child directories are evaluated for
•
•
•
•
Age appropriateness,
Readability,
Interest level, and
Usefulness to children.
– AskJeeves For Kids http://www.ajkids.com/
– KidsClick!
http://www.kidsclick.org/
– Yahooligans http://www.yahooligans.com/
© 2004 PDC, Santa Rosa County School District
Web Search
Miscellany
• Activity: How do selected advanced search
options work in different search engines?
– http://s.teoma.com/AdvancedSearch
– http://www.google.com/advanced_search
© 2004 PDC, Santa Rosa County School District
Web Search
Miscellany (Cont.)
• Activity: Where can I learn more about various
search engines and research sites?
– http://www.searchengines.com/
– http://www.allsearchengines.com/
© 2004 PDC, Santa Rosa County School District
Web Search
Miscellany (Cont.)
• Activity:
Do meta search engines produce significantly
different results from a search engine?
– http://www.surfwax.com/ or
– http://www.webcrawler.com/ or
– http://www.allsearchengines.com/
© 2004 PDC, Santa Rosa County School District
Web Search
Miscellany (Cont.)
• Activity: Where can I learn more about Web site
rating systems?
– http://www.icra.org/
© 2004 PDC, Santa Rosa County School District
Web Search
Miscellany (Cont.)
• Activity: Where can I learn more about software
designed to filter Web content?
– http://www.cybersitter.com/ or
– http://www.netnanny.com/ or
– http://www.kidsnet.com/
© 2004 PDC, Santa Rosa County School District
Web Search
Miscellany (Cont.)
• Activity: Where can I learn more about "safe
searching" options in a search engine?
–
–
–
–
http://www.safekids.com/
http://www.rcls.org/ksearch.htm
http://www.cybertipline.com/
http://www.safeteens.com/
© 2004 PDC, Santa Rosa County School District
Web Search
Miscellany (Cont.)
• What questions do I need to consider when I
evaluate Web sites?
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–
–
–
–
–
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Author and Contact info?
Creation/Revision info?
Current info?
Accurate? and Unbiased?
Readable?
Useful, labeled graphics?
Enough info to justify visit?
Easier to find on Web or in Library?
© 2004 PDC, Santa Rosa County School District