Melinda Cooper's Blog

So we are coming to an end of week three (3). For this week, one of the things we learned about was the Internet. I am happy to say, this is a concept that I am pretty familiar with. One thing that I thought was very important in this weeks lesson, was how to find information on the Internet.

To find most of your information, you should utilize a search engine. A search engine is a web service that uses web robots to query millions of pages on the Internet and create an index of those web pages. You can then use these services to quickly and easily find the information they may be looking for. When searching for information on the Internet, there are a few things you should keep in mind. You should put quotations around your searches. For example if you are searching for multiple common words such as computer and help, it is a good idea to place quotes around the full search to get better results; i.e. "computer help". Another good thing to remember is be aware of stop words. Many search engines will strip out common words they refer to as stop words for each search that is performed. For example, instead of searching for why does my computer not boot, it'd search for documents with computer and boot. Further, you should familiarize yourself with Booleans. Many search engines allow Booleans, which can prevent results you many not want from being displayed. Your most common booleans include "and" / "or".

You should always know what features are available on the internet. See this Google tips section for additional tips and features you may not be aware of.
http://www.riches.com.au/articles/internet_search_tips.htm


Lastly, always try multiple search engines. Not all search engines contain the same information. For example, you could try using a Meta search engine, such as www.dogpile.com. A meta search can give you a fair picture of what's available across the Web and where it can be found, thus reducing your search time.