Finding the Trees in the Digital Forest
Finding the Trees in the Digital Forest
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Try this: Select a compound concept (at least two words) related to the topic on the previous page. Search in each of the search engines. Which one gave you the most relevant results? |
| Use these search engines; while you're there, explore some of their features. | Number
of sites |
Useful
sites |
| Try a search "only in" your primary subject. | ||
| Infoseek | ||
| Look at the topics in the GO directory: how many of these are relevant? | ||
| "Search within results" to increase precision. | ||
| Northern Light | ||
| Select a custom search folder. | ||
| Try a Power Search. | ||
| Alta Vista | ||
| Compare the results from a simple and an advanced search. | ||
| The Big Hub | ||
| Choose a Specialty Search Category. | ||
| CNET Search | ||
| Click on advanced; select groups of sites to search. (Note the assumption in the default.) | ||
| Metacrawler | ||
| Search for a phrase. |
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Try this: Try a new search in Ask Jeeves and Subjex. Does phrasing your inquiry as a complete sentence significantly change the way you search? |