Seven Steps Toward Better Searching

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Seven Steps Toward

Better Searching Most people use a search engine by simply typing a few words into the query box

and then scrolling through whatever comes up. Sometimes their choice of wordsends up narrowing the search unduly and causing them not to find what they're

looking for. More often the end result of the search is a haystack of off-target webpages that must be combed through.

You can become a better searcher by simply mastering 7 tricks in AltaVista. To helpyou remember them, think of a sentence so goofy you'll never get it out of your

mind:

My

plumpstarfish

quicklylowered

Lincoln'stie.

What does it all mean? You'll know when you've completed the exercise that follows.

You can access the AltaVista simple search here, and there is a simple search help

page that you should look over now, before we start. Bookmark both of them so thatyou can get back to them at any point.

http://www.altavista.com/

http://doc.altavista.com/help/search/search_help.html

http://www.altavista.com/

http://doc.altavista.com/help/search/search_help.html



Print out the accompanying worksheet NEW and record the number of matchesyou find for each search so that when you review you can see the patterns of

widening and narrowing your search.

Look for something like this and record the

number of hits you get for each search.

Simple Search Practice

Include and Exclude (+ and -)

My plump The first two basic

tools to practice with the simple searchare the use of + and - to include or

exclude words. For example, if you wantedto find sites about Atlantis, the purported

lost continent, and you wanted toeliminate all pages that were about

Atlantis, the space shuttle.

Note: There's no space between the +or - and the word, but there is a space

between words.

You'd type+Atlantis -shuttle

(i.e., +Atlantis space -shuttle)

NOT

+Atlantis-shuttle(i.e., +Atlantis nospace -shuttle)

Try each of the searches now, and recordhow many sites you find.

As you do each search, take note of what

kinds of things turn up. Notice that the

more specific the terms you include andexclude, the more focused your search.

Query # Matches

+Atlantis 241,757

+Atlantis -shuttle 215,857

+Atlantis -shuttle+continent

+Atlantis -shuttle

+continent -film-movie

NEWSFLASH! March 7, 2001. Altavista recently

made a change in their search engine so that the + is

always assumed. (That is, they assume that if you

typed in a word, you really want it included). Someother search engines still use the +, so we're keeping

it in this page for now.

We'll have to come up with a new mnemonic soon to

replace Plump :-)

Thanks to Cheryl Nielsen of Clear Lake, Iowa for

alerting me to the change!

Use the Wildcard (*)

http://webquest.sdsu.edu/searching/sevensteps-worksheet.html

http://webquest.sdsu.edu/searching/sevensteps-worksheet.html



Starfish A common mistake

people make is to inadvertantly narrow

their search too much by excludingvariations on a word they're looking for.

For example, if you typed in +mushrooms,

you'd miss all those pages that just hadthe singular word mushroom on them.

The * wildcard stands for any letter(s).

The wildcard is also useful for catchingother variations on a word such as

different forms of a verb.

In general, never search for the plural

of a word. Use the wildcard and get both

the singular and plural forms.

Query # Matches

mushrooms

mushroom*

surf*surf* -surface*

Use "Quotes" to Look for a Phrase



Quickly If you type a sequence of

words in as a query, AltaVista will look for

documents that contain any of thosewords. If you want the words to hang

together as a phrase, you should put

double quotes around them.

Try these:

AltaVista recently added a phrase-

guessing element to its algorithms. If youtype a few words in, and those words are

commonly found hanging together in itsindex, it will assume that you're searching

for them as a phrase even if you don't put

quotes around them. If you're looking fora phrase that is not common, though,

you'll need the quotes.

The ability to search for phrases can besurprisingly useful. Do you suspect that

something your student turned in was plagiarized, or at least heavily borrowed

without attribution? Type in a phrase or two from the paper and see if it turns up

elsewhere! You can also check to see if your own work is being copied without

your permission.

Query # Matches

San Diego

"San Diego"

merits of laziness

"merits of laziness"

Another use for this feature: stamping out urban legends. Next time you get an e-

mail warning you about a repressive new law about to pass or a vicious computer

virus about to attack, check it out before passing on misinformation to others.

use lower case (usually)



Lowered AltaVista pays attention

to any capital letters you type into a

query. If you search for Octopus, it willonly find documents in which it's spelled

that way. In general, unless you're

after a particular spelling, use alllower case.

Try these:

Query # Matches

Octopus

octopus

WebQuestwebquest

webquest*

Use the link: Tag to Find Pages Linked to Another Page

Lincoln's Suppose you

und the absolutely perfectage about life in Ancient

gypt, and it's located attp://touregypt.net/Antiq.htm.

ou suspect that any other webages out there that contain a

nk to that page would alsoontain things that would

terest your students.

you put all or part of the URL

the page after "link:", you'llet a list of pages that are

nked to the one you found

seful.

Query #

Match

link:http://www.clpgh.org/cmnh/tours/egypt/walton.html

link:edweb.sdsu.edu/webquest/webquest.html

Try these and see how many other pages are linked to the Ancient Egypt pageto the WebQuest Page. (In fact, because Altavista has indexed the page you'r

reading now, you'll see it among the Egypt links as well.)

Use the title: Tag to Focus Your Search

http://touregypt.net/Antiq.htm

http://touregypt.net/Antiq.htm



Tie A simple search will find a word

anywhere on the web page. To locate

pages that are primarily about one thing,look for pages that have that thing in their

title. The result is much more tightly

focused.

Note: There can be a space betweentitle: and the next word or not. It

doesn't seem to matter.

Try these:

Query # Matches

frog*

title:frog*

webquesttitle:webquest

So, to recap... remembering this sentence will help you to remember the seven

techniques you just experimented with:

My plump starfish quickly lowered Lincoln's tie.

minus plus star quoteslower

caselink: title:

-exclude +include wildcard*"phrases in

quotes"case MATTERS

find pageslinked

find words inthe title

Documents

Seven Steps Toward Better Searching