LS003

Surfing the Internet for

Useful Information

Pao Yue-kong Library

PolyU

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 Agenda
Picking the right search tool:
Subject Directories
Search Engines (e.g. Google, Yahoo, Baidu)
Metasearch Engines (e.g. PolyCola, Dogpile)
Specialized Search Engines (e.g. World Bank,
Medline)

Evaluating what you have found

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 Part 1
Picking the Right Search Tool

Title: Discovering the Internet : complete / Gary B. Shelly,

Jennifer T. Campbell.
p. 112
The search process:
1.Choose the best search tool
2.Formulate the search query
3.Perform the search
4.Examine the results
5.Evaluate the credibility of the search results

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 Subject Directories
Created by editors or trained researchers who select,
classify, and annotate () websites by subject.

Websites are usually organized by hierarchical (

) subject categories in the directory. For example:
Social Science

Sociology Political Science

Demography Criminology Organizations Politics Public Policy

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 Subject Directories

Advantages Disadvantages
Useful for exploring broad Difficult to maintain the
subject areas updated-ness
Most useful if you are not Limited coverage, few sites
sure what specific are indexed
keywords to use Selective rather than
Information is classified into comprehensive
hierarchical structure by
human experts, ensuring
relevancy and value

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 Google stopped supporting
directory search at the end of
2010.

http://www.ipl2.org/

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 Subject Directories
e.g.
About.com [http://www.about.com/]
Refdesk [http://www.refdesk.com/]
dmoz [http://www.dmoz.org/]
WWW Virtual Library [http://vlib.org/] (started by Tim
Berners-Lee, founder of the web)

: Yahoo Hong Kong [http://hk.yahoo.com]

Sohu () [http://www.sohu.com]
Sina () [http://www.sina.com.cn/]
Timway () [http://timway.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMOZ

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 Search Engines
Tools that use special software (called robots, spiders or crawlers)
to browse the Web and compile a searchable index without human
intervention.
2. Crawl () pages
and follow hyperlinks 3. Save the web content
1. Web Spider
& addresses as keywords

Keyword 1
Keyword 2
Keyword 3

5. Store information for 4. Builds index system

user to search of keywords
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 Search Engines
A spider program may index words from
different sections of a Web page: title, URL, first
few paragraphs or full-text.
Each search engine may follow its own path to
search the Web and also index different parts of
a site.
Therefore, the same search may yield different
results with different search engines.

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https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/use-search-bar-firefox

Available search engines

Firefox comes with the following
search engines by default:

Customize your search settings: If

these settings aren't right for you,
changing them is easy. See Change
your default search settings in Firefox
or Add or remove a search engine in
Firefox for more information. 12
 Effective Search Strategies
Identifying the right keywords
Formulating your search
Use truncation [e.g. chin*]/wildcard [e.g. wom?n], phrase
search [e.g. global warming], Boolean operators (AND, OR,
NOT) to combine search terms (if applicable)
Setting limits on search scope
Limits to specific file type, domain, title, URL (if applicable)
Modify your search
Expand or narrow your search

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 Effective Search Strategies

Begin with a few indoor air 3,100,000

keywords, then add quality
more to focus.
indoor air 262,000
Examples : quality CO2

indoor air 12,500

quality CO2
headaches

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 Effective Search Strategies

Try different keywords, synonyms (), and variant

of spellings
Examples:
composition, writing
WTO, World Trade Organization
favorites, favourites

Learn from your search results.

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 Google
2. Expand
Filter and refine
your results.

1. Click Settings to view

Googles
Search Help
 Google
How to search on Google

Tip 1: Start with the basics

For example, bakery seattle.

Tip 2: Search using your voice

Tip 3: Choose words carefully

For example, instead of saying my head hurts, say headache, because thats
the word a medical site would use.

Tip 4: Dont worry about the little things

Spelling. Google's spell checker automatically uses the most common spelling of
a given word, whether or not you spell it correctly.
Capitalization. A search for New York Times is the same as a search for new
york times.

Tip 5: Find quick answers

Weather: Search weather to see the weather in your location or add a city name,
like weather seattle, to find weather for a certain place.
Dictionary: Put define in front of any word to see its definition, like define prime.
Calculations: Enter a math equation like 3*9123, or solve complex graphing
equations.
Unit conversions: Enter any conversion, like 3 dollars in euros.
Refine web searches

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Refine web searches

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 Google
Setting Limits on Search Operators
URL, Site, and Domain Search
Examples :
admission site:mit.edu
global warming site:org
gov, go government agencies
org, or non-profit organizations
edu, ac educational/academic institutions
net network providers
com, co commercial sites

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 Yahoo
https://help.yahoo.com/

Advanced Web Search

https://search.yahoo.com//web/advanced
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Yahoo
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 Metasearch Engines
Transmits your search terms simultaneously to several different search engines and
compile the search results in one search results list

Examples
DogPile [http://www.dogpile.com]
Get all the best search results from today's leading search engines,
including Google, Yahoo! and Bing.
Metacrawler [http://www.metacrawler.com]
PolyCola.com [http://www.polycola.com/] (originally GahooYoogle)
Search Google and Yahoo! and more at the same time.

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 Metasearch Engines

Advantages Disadvantages
Provide an Do not offer the advanced features
overview of what is of individual search engine.
available on each
They may change or remove parts of
search engine.
the query you entered.
Good for simple
You cannot tell if all search engines
keyword search; or
are queried as claimed.
specific, obscure
search terms. They mix non-paid and sponsored
hits together in the same search
results list.

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 Specialized Search Engines
The most focused tool -- usually limited to a specific topic but
provides in-depth information

Examples :
World Bank Open Data [http://data.worldbank.org/]
MedlinePlus
[http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/index.html]
Proprietary databases, e.g. Web of Science, Scopus

Quick Exercise
Type SARS to find information about Severe acute respiratory
syndrome from
Google
MedlinePlus [http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/index.html]
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http://library.polyu.edu.hk:80/record=b2437401~S2

The Hidden Web

"Google is certainly a useful Internet
search tool for general topics, but
most of the information available on
the Invisible Web can't be found
through Google. This book explains
the value of the Invisible Web and
how to access it.
Source:
http://www.abc-clio.com/ABC-
CLIOCorporate/PrintProduct.aspx?pc=A3164P
The best selling apparel and footwear brand in the
world?

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 Part 2
Evaluating What You Have Found

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https://www.lib.polyu.edu.hk/research-support/help/guides/topical-research-
guide/evaluate-internet.htm

Evaluate free information on the Internet

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Author Bradley, Phil, 1959-
Title Expert Internet searching / Phil Bradley.
Publisher London : Facet Pub., 2013
Edition 4th ed.
CALL NUMBER K5105.875.I57 B716 2013

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