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Finding Information on the Internet (Adapted from UC Berkeley Library)
The Five-Step Search Strategy We Recommend
Step #1. Analyze your topic to decide where to begin
Does your topic...
- Have distinctive words or phrases?
Example:
methernitha, unique meaning
"affirmative action", specific, accepted meaning in word cluster
- Have NO distinctive words or phrases you can think of? You have only common or general terms that get the "wrong" pages.
Example:
"order out of chaos", used in too many contexts to be useful
sundiata, retrieves a myth, a rock group, a person, etc.
- Seek an overview of a broad topic? Example:
victorian literature, alternative energy sources
- Specify a narrow aspect of a broad or common topic? Example:
automobile recyclability, want current research, future designs, not how to recycle or oil recycling or other community efforts
- Have synonymous, equivalent terms, or variant spellings or endings that need to be included? Example:
echinoderm OR echinoidea OR "sea urchin", any may be in useful pages
"cold fusion energy" OR "hydrogen energy", some use one term, some the other; you want both, although not precisely equivalent
millennium OR millennial OR millenium OR millenial OR "year 2000", etc.
Pages you want may contain any or all.
- Make you feel confused? Don't really know much about the topic yet? Need guidance?
Step #2. Pick the right starting place using this table:
| YOUR TOPIC'S FEATURES: |
Search Engines |
Subject Directories |
Specialized Databases "Invisible Web" |
Find an Expert |
LUCK |
| Distinctive word or phrase? |
Enclose phrases in " ". Test run your word or phrase in Google. |
Search the broader concept, what your term is "about." |
Want data? Facts? Statistics?
All of something?
One of many like things?
Schedules? Maps?
Look for a specialized database on the Invisible Web.
Hard to predict what you might find. |
Look for a specialized subject directory on your topic.
E-mail the author of a good page you find.
Ask a discussion group or expert.
Never hurts to seek help. |
Always on your side.
Keep your mind open.
Learn as you search. |
| NO distinctive words or phrases? | Use more than one term or phrase in " " to get fewer results. | Try to find distinctive terms in Subject Directories |
| Seek an overview? | NOT RECOMMENDED | Look for a specialized Subject Directory focused on your topic? |
| Narrow aspect of broad or common topic? | Boolean searching as in Yahoo! Search. | Look for a Directory focused on the broad subject. |
| Synonyms, equivalent terms, variants? | Choose search engines with Boolean OR, or
Truncation, or Field limiting. | NOT RECOMMENDED |
| Confused? Need more information? | NOT RECOMMENDED | Look for a Gateway Page (Subject Guide).
Try an encyclopedia in a Virtual Library.
Ask at a library reference desk. |
Step #3. Learn as you go & VARY your approach with what you learn.
Don't assume you know what you want to find. Look at search results and see what you might use in addition to what you've thought of.
Step #4. Don't bog down in any strategy that doesn't work.
Switch from search engines to directories and back. Find specialized directories on your topic. Think about possible databases and look for them.
Step #5. Return to previous strategies better informed.
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