Internet Searching Strategies

Formulating a Strategy

Decide if your topic is likely to be addressed on the Internet.You will find excellent Internet resources for:

You will find less information (although this is rapidly changing) about:

Expect to find mostly current information on the Internet.
However, the expection is that information posted on the Internet will be updated frequently--often, it is not.
Expect to find some older materials, particularly materials whose copyright has expired (usually more than 75 years old).

Checking the sites the search engine returned will automatically narrow your search! Since many of the search engines do not regularly update their links, some of the sites they return will no longer be available.
All the search engines feature a link to an "advanced search," with instructions on how to combine or eliminate terms.
Most of the search engines use OR as a default. This means that you will get a list of sites that include one of any of the terms you used to search. If you search for blue moon, you will get a list of sites for blue suede shoes, moon pies, etc.
To retrieve sites with all the terms you have entered, try AND or +. To eliminate terms, try NOT or -. To search for a phrase, try WITH or put quotation marks around it ("blue moon").
Most of the search engines will ignore and, not, with, adj in the lowercase.
Vary your vocabulary. Try cyan, azure, or cornflower instead of blue.
Vary your spelling. The Internet is a global network, so, to search on the word color, try color and colour, and maybe even Farbe or couleur.
Truncate your words, usually with a * (for instance, color* will turn up coloring, colors, colorized).

Many sites offer internal search engines, that is, search features that will look throughout a collection of web pages.

For instance, you can cut the /Fondren/Netguides/strategies.html off of this URL and get to RiceInfo's main page.

Change http:// to gopher:// or ftp:// and you may discover text files or software at the site.

If the address contains "cgi-bin", you should be able to bookmark it and return to it later.

New Domain names:

Look at the URL to determine who produced the site (or who posted it, at least).

List the author's name, if it is given.
List the title of the page.
List the URL.
Indicate the date you visited the page (Web pages often do not list the date they were created or updated, so this is a way of indicating how current the information may be).
For more specific information, refer to online style guides for citing electronic sources.