Using Search Engines

Lecture Summary:

Search Engines are websites with large indexes of commonly accesed resources in a searchable database.
Before researching one needs to have an idea of how information is stored and accesed on the web. There are three categories of information on the web the free visible web which contains all the publicly availed web pages and can be accessed through a good search engine, free invisible web which contains the sites that provide articles and information free to its users but the content is accesible by going straight into the site, and paid database over the web this category contains commercial databases that libraries subscribe to containing scolarly journals, newspapers and court cases.
Search Tools:
Search tools consist of two categories, Search Engines and Directories. Search Engines consist of the interface you use to type in a query, an index of Web sites that the query is matched with, and a software program (called a spider or bot) that goes out on the Web and gets new sites for the index. Directories are categorized lists of sites picked out by human editors. Example include Yahoo, Look Smart, and Snap.
Types of Seach Engines
Google
Yahoo
Altavista
All the web
Problems with Searach Engines is that they return too many results for a query. They also have limited filtering or results to a searh query.
Directories
Dmoz
Google Directory
Yahoo Directory
Look Smart
About
US Search Engines Rankings as of September 2007.
Of the 9.4 billion search performed
– Google 57%
– Yahoo 23.7%
– Microsoft 10.3%
– Ask 4.7%
– Time Warner including AOL 4.5%.
Search Engine Interaction
Types of queries
Keyword
Phrase
Boolean

Advance / Engine features
Strategies and Key word choices

What civilisation is associated with the once great city of Machu Picchu the spectacular ruins of which were rediscovered in 1911? The most effective strategy would be to use the key word Machu Picchu

Search Tips
Use as many search tools as possible
Read the search tip or help information at each search engine
Guess a location
For a keyword search use several words
Know what you want
Use advanced search functions to narrow down the search


Tutorial Summary:

The tutorial involves student being exposed into a range of search engines such as google, yahoo and Alltheweb to use for simple and advanced search for information. Students will also need to learn the strenths and weaknesses of sdifferent search engines. Students will visit a website form Monash University on interactive tutorial about search engines and directories. With the knowlege gained by visiting the site students will then list four strategies that will help structure a good search.

List of strategies to use for a good search:

· Always have an objective of what you want to search on the web.
· Use quotation marks to give you the specific result.
· Choose web directories when searching for broad information rather than search engines.
· If you are clear about the topic of your query then use web directories rather than search engines.

Strategies Used in searching for Information:

• Firstly quotation marks gives the specific information one wants and it is very effective in yielding precise information.

Summary of what was learned about information found on the internet and how to search for information:

There is a wide variety of information found on the internet and it is therefore important to know what strategies to use to get the precise information that you want. As mentioned in the tutorial summary knowing the strenthgs of search engines and weaknesses allows for an easy search for information. Moreover, using strategies such as having an objective of what you want to learn, using quotation marks around key words, choosing search engines when searching for broad information rather than web directories and using web directories when clear of your topic are all important strategies to getting important information.

Using the www

Summary: The lecture will be covering these topics:

Internet vs Web:

web is an abstract virtual space of information it would not exist without the net.

Historical Perspective of the web:

The web was developed by Tim Berners-Lee in( a researcher at CERN) 1989. This was mainly done to facilitate sharing research information.

Defining the www:

The web is a universe of accessible information stored on computers around the world. The information is available through a gigantic network called internet. A network of servers is linked together by a common protocol, allowing access to millions of hypertext resources.

WWW Protocols

TCP/IP – Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol
» HTTP – Hypertext Transfer Protocol
» DNS – Domain Name System
» URL – Uniform/Universal Resource Locator

Web browsers/interface:

The web browsers interface provides the user tools for searching, navigating and saving snapshots of www.


Tutorial Summary:

The tutorial will be looking at evaluating the relevance, authenticity, validity and reliability of a range of library online and other sources of information.

The websites have attempted to be authentic

• By having terms and conditions link on one of the websites homepage



• By having the presidents picture on the site and the flag of the country attempted to show that this website is not a joke

But in reality these websites are not authentic:

• The molossia site is a spoof because it says so if you click on the teachers link



• Also molossia is not a country



• The url says org when it is not an orgnisation's website



• The website provides this information on the homepage Republic of Molossia 226 Mary Lane,Dayton, NV 89403 which also gives it away as a spoof

The haggis hunt site does not have any contacts on the homepage

• There is no elaboration of what a haggis hunt is on the home page


• There is a link on the site that has nothing to do with the website itself camvista.com

Based on the url I expect to find a biography of martin luther king on this website, which would have included what he stood for in America and what his legacy is.

My first impressions is that the website is appalling in its message and what it is presenting abuot one of the world's most respected personalities, Martin Luther King was famous for his persistent for equality for all Americans especially his people the African American. It is clear that the information written on this website about Martin Luther King is extremely biased and has been written with no prior knowledge about Martin Luther King and what he was as a person. The website is presenting simply the opposite of Martin Luther King.

I believe as a person who knows Martin Luther King and what he has done in America, the website is surely not credibe to use for any purposes of research. The website virtually presents a true opposite of Martin Luther King's calibre and has been produced with no research about Martin Luther King.

Reading One Summary: A brief History of the Internet: Internet is a system that allows computers to communicate with each other. The first step towards the modern computer was Samuel Morse's invention in 1844 of communication using electronic impulses, a key and a special code that sequences of pulses to letters of the alphabet. When war came up scientists were force to produce a device with an internal stored memory. then in June 1948 a team at the University of Manchester produced one followed by a wave later. until now cimputers have been developed either for various branches of government or as prototype units within universities.

Reading Summary Two: The World Wide Web is a network of sites that can be searched and retrieved by a special protocol known as a Hypertext Transfer protocol (HTTP). The WWW concept was designed in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee and scientists at CERN (Geneva), the European centre for High Energy Physics, who were interested in making easier to retrieve research documentation. A year later he had developed a 'browser/editor' program and had coined the name World Wide Web as a name for the program. The next step was to design an improved 'browser', a system which allowed the links to be hidden behind text (using a Hypertext Markup Language, HTML) and activated by a click with the 'mouse'. By the end of 1992 there were only 50 web-sites in the World and a year later the number was still no more than 150. In 1994 there were 3,2 mln hosts and 3,000 web-sites. Twelve months later the number of hosts had doubled and the number of web-sites had climbed to 25,000. By the end of the next year the number of host computers had doubled again, and the number of web-sites had increased by more than ten-fold. This all took place in 1997, by which time the number of host computers integrated into the Web had reached 19,5 mln hosts, and the number of web-sites had shot up to 1,2 million. By the last count, in January 2001, the number of hosts stood at 110 million and the number of web-sites had reached 30 million.

Week Three Using online libraries and Databases

Lecture summary:

online databases and libraries are an extremely important source of informaion, especially for Univesity students who have to be accustomed to nothing else but research. Online databases and libraries are useful in that they are accesible 24/7. Most of this online are free. online databases and libraries are also current.




Tutorial Summary: This tutorial will be focussing at how to use online library to research information. It will also involve finding tips which help to searh information which you want.




us (-) signs in front of words to force their inclusion and/or exclusion in searches.EXAMPLE: +meat -potatoes(NO space between the sign and the keyword)

· Use double quotation marks (" ") around phrases to ensure they are searched exactly as is, with the words side by side in the same order.EXAMPLE: "bye bye miss american pie"(Do NOT put quotation marks around a single word.)

· Put your most important keywords first in the string.EXAMPLE: dog breed family pet choose

· Type keywords and phrases in lower case to find both lower and upper case versions. Typing capital letters will usually return only an exact match.EXAMPLE: president retrieves both president and President

· Use truncation (or stemming) and wildcards (e.g., *) to look for variations in spelling and word form.EXAMPLE: librar* returns library, libraries, librarian, etc.EXAMPLE: colo*r returns color (American spelling) and colour (British spelling)

· Combine phrases with keywords, using the double quotes and the plus (+) and/or minus (-) signs.EXAMPLE: +cowboys +"wild west" -football -dallas(In this case, if you use a keyword with a +sign, you must put the +sign in front of the phrase as well. When searching for a phrase alone, the +sign is not necessary.)

· When searching within a document for the location of your keyword(s), use the "find" command on that page.

· Know the default (basic) settings your search engine uses (OR or AND). This will have an effect on how you configure your search statement because, if you don't use any signs (+, -, " "), the engine will default to its own settings.

· Know whether or not the search engine you are using maintains a stop word list (see "Stop Words" Lesson 6.) If it does, don't use known stop words in your search statement. Also, consider trying your search on another engine that does not recognize stop words.

Photoshot of Global warming search

I think prospective students who aspire to be orthopedics would find this page useful, it helps with general introduction to the topic.

Reading summary: Finding what you want on the web:

There is now enough reference material available online that one do not need to have a multi-volume encyclopedia. However finding the right information a wide web is difficult and therefore one also need to judge whether the information being presented is credible. There are also important blogs out there which illuminates stories, subjects and point to other important sources of information.

Reading Two Summary: Basic seach tips

Use the plus (+) and minus (-) signs in front of words to force their inclusion and/or exclusion in searches. Use double quotation marks (" ") around phrases to ensure they are searched exactly as is, with the words side by side in the same order. Put your most important keywords first in the string. Type keywords and phrases in lower case to find both lower and upper case versions. Typing capital letters will usually return only an exact match. Use truncation (or stemming) and wildcards (e.g., *) to look for variations in spelling and word form. Combine phrases with keywords, using the double quotes and the plus (+) and/or minus (-) signs. When searching within a document for the location of your keyword(s), use the "find" command on that page. Know the default (basic) settings your search engine uses (OR or AND). Know whether or not the search engine you are using maintains a stop word list.