Asia EdNet Tutorial - Module 1
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What's out there and how do you find it? |
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Using search engines 
Whole books have been written about ways to search the Internet and it is beyond the scope of this tutorial to give an in-depth treatment of the topic. On the other hand, fairly simple searches of the Internet do not have to be daunting and you can often find useful resources without too much trouble.
This section looks at search engines and how to use them effectively to find the information you need.
It should be said that there is no 'right' way to search the Internet, though some ways may be more efficient than others. A search is successful if you find what you want or something that is useful to you.
What are search engines?
A search engine is a database of links to Internet sites which have been collected automatically by a 'robot'. There is no evaluation of the sites and no order is imposed on this collection of links but search engines contain far more links than hand-selected subject directories and some, if not all, of the text in the sites themselves is indexed and can be searched using keywords which you supply.
Some well-known search engines include:
but there are many more.
Note that many search engines (including all those above) also include a subject directory of the better sites in the collection. However, their primary value is their large databases of Internet links.
It is important to note that no search engine has indexed everything on the Internet. Recent estimates (http://www.192directory.co.uk/web_services/how_big_is_the_web.htm) are that, while search engines index over 3 billion Web pages, there are actually something like 500 times that number of pages, many hidden in the so-called 'Invisible Web'.
How do search engines work?
When you supply some words to a search engine, it searches its index for those words and returns a list of Internet sites to you. Just how it treats the syntax of the words you supply varies from search engine to search engine but no search engine can read your mind. Some search engine developers work hard to make them seem 'friendly' but all they can do is work with the words supplied.
Most search engines have 'simple' and 'advanced' search options. Advanced searches make use of 'Boolean' logic (for more information, see the section on Boolean Searching in this tutorial). However, in this tutorial we will mainly use so-called 'simple' searches as even these can be quite powerful.
Natural language searching
Asking a question is called 'natural language' searching and there are search engines designed around this idea. One is Ask Jeeves http://www.ask.com/).
Task 7 - Natural language searching 
Go to Ask Jeeves (http://www.ask.com/).
Experiment with asking various questions of Ask Jeeves and see what kinds of results you get. You will usually get a reasonable result for questions like 'Where can I find information about Corazon Aquino?' but more obscure questions may be much less successful.
Natural language searching may or may not be the way of the future but for the present we will concentrate on another way you can narrow down your searches, that is, using keyword searching.
Keyword searching
In keyword searching, you leave out any unnecessary words such as 'why', 'where', 'about', 'in' etc and concentrate on the essential words that most accurately describe your topic.
Task 8 - Search strategies using keywords
We will concentrate in this tutorial on using Google (http://www.google.com.au/), said to be the largest and most popular search engine. Most of the features available in Google are also available in other search engines.
Carefully read this example of a the way you might go about a search using keywords.
Of course, when you perform your own searches on your own topic, you wouldn't search with the exact combinations of words you used in the example. Just use the same principles and follow the steps summarised below:
Step |
Example |
Step 1
Write down what you want to know |
Previously undescribed animal species recently found in Vietnam. |
Step 2
Extract and write down key words |
Search terms: Vietnam animals discovery |
Step 3
Add more key words if you can |
Search terms: Vietnam animals discovery mammals species |
Step 4
Where possible use searching devices
- the wildcard symbol (*)
- the + symbol
- double quotation marks (" ")
(see below for key to searching devices) |
Search terms: +Vietnam animal* discover* mammal* species |
Step 5
Perform the search |
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Step 6
Perform another search if necessary (using information gained in the first search) |
Search terms: "sao la" "vu quang ox" |
| Key to searching devices |
| * |
Wildcard - use at the end of a search term to find all words that begin with the term, eg thai* will find 'Thailand', 'Thais' and 'Thai'. |
| + |
AND - use at the beginning of a search term to indicate that the word must be found in all search results, eg +taiwan +transport will only find sites that contain both 'Taiwan' and 'transport' on the same web page. |
| " " |
Literals - use around two or more words to search for a particular phrase, eg "Rabindranath Tagore" will only find web pages that contain this exact phrase. It will not find pages that contain only 'Rabindranath' or only 'Tagore', nor 'Rabindranath' in one part of the page and 'Tagore' in another part, nor 'Tagore, Rabindranath'. |
| These search devices can be combined to help refine your search further, eg +"zen buddh*" +japan will find web pages which include both 'Japan' and phrases beginning with 'Zen Buddh' (such as 'Zen Buddhism' and 'Zen Buddhists'). |
Task 9 - Searching on your own topic
Set yourself another search, for something you believe would be useful in your classroom. Follow a similar procedure to that used above, using Google.
Take care to formulate your topic and relevant keywords carefully before you start to search.
 To help you with your search, a blank form showing the steps outlined in Task 8 is available for printing out.
When you find a useful site, bookmark the address or record it in your notebook for later reference. You will need a collection of sites like this in Module 3. (If you have access to a printer, you might like to print the front pages out as well.)
 If you can't think of a topic
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