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Effective Search StringsContinued
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Truncated Searches
• A special symbol (*) which allows you to search simultaneously for several words with the same stem
computer
Comput* computers
computing
computer careerscomputations
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Wildcard Searches
• Let you search for numerous word versions
• Use the “?” symbol in your search word
• Example: m?n = man or men or msn wom?n = woman or women
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Boolean Searches
• Let you to broaden a search
• Let you to narrow a search
• Operate differently in each search engine
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Boolean SearchesHow do I narrow a search
using “and”?
• Using and will only provide links to sites which have BOTH of these words present
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Boolean Searches How do I narrow a search
even more?• Using and twice will limit the search even
more
• You will only get
pages that include
all THREE of the terms
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Boolean Searches How do I narrow a search
using “not”?• Using not narrows the search by telling the
search engine to exclude certain words
• AltaVista uses the
form and not elementary
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Boolean Searches How do I broaden a search?
• Use of the word or will broaden a search
• Use or if two words
may be used
interchangeably
• Can use or more than once to get very broad
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Google: Advanced Search
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HotBot : Advanced Search Options
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Yahoo Canada : Advanced Search Options
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What is a ‘Meta’ Search Engine?
• does not create its own information database
• It searches the databases of other engines
• Allows you to look through many pages from different search engines at once
• Best to use only when you are having trouble locating information on your topic
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Hints for searching
• Use unique keywords
• Check your spelling
• Use quotation marks around phrases
• Try using different search engines
• Read the help files
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Remember
• Hits are returned and ranked according to –• How many times terms appear on the page
• How often terms appear
• How close terms are to each other
• How near the top of the page the terms are found
• The best results will appear on the first page or two of hits
• No two search engines are alike. Try another search engine, or rephrase your terms if you don’t get good results.
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Adapted from: Kathy Schrock
http://www.capecod.net/schrockguide/
M. Rosettis - School Library Information Centre - St. Augustine C.H.S.