Seven Steps

Toward Better Searching

© Bernie Dodge
Ed Tech Dept., San Diego State University
http://edweb.sdsu.edu/webquest/searching/sevensteps.html
Reprinted with permission



 
 
 

My plump
Starfish
quickly
lowered
Lincoln's
tie. 

 
 
 
 
 
Simple Search Practice
Include and Exclude (+ and -)
My plumpThe first two basic tools to practice with the simple search are the use of + and - to include or exclude words. For example, if you wanted to find sites about backgammon tournaments, you'd type both words into the query box. However... this would find you sites that mentioned backgammon OR tournament. You want to find sites that use BOTH terms, so by putting a +before each term you force them to be included in all sites found.

Note: There's no space between the + and the word, but there is a space between words. 

E.g.: +tournament <space> +backgammon

Try it now, and record how many sites you find.

Try another. Suppose you wanted to find sites about the lost continent of Atlantis, not the shuttle Atlantis and not the movie of the same name. Try each query listed to the right:

As you do each search, take note of what kinds of things turn up. Notice that the more specific the terms you include and exclude, the more focused your search.
 
Query 
# Matches
backgammon tournament 
1,700,000
+Atlantis -shuttle   
Query 
# Matches
+Atlantis  
+Atlantis -shuttle   
+Atlantis -shuttle +continent  
+Atlantis -shuttle +continent -film -movie  
Use the Wildcard (*)
StarfishA common mistake people make is to inadvertantly narrow their search too much by excluding variations on a word theyíre looking for. For example, if you typed in +mushrooms, youíd miss all those pages that just had the singular word mushroom on them.

The *wildcard stands for any letter(s). The wildcard is also useful for catching other variations on a word such as different forms of the verb. 

In general, never search for the plural of a word. Use the wildcard and get both the singular and plural forms.
 
Query
# Matches
+mushrooms  
+mushrooms*  
+surf*  
+surf* -surface  
Use "Quotes" to Look for a Phrase
Quickly  If you type a sequence of words in as a query, AltaVista will look for documents that contain any of those words. If you want the words to hand together as a phrase, you should put double quotes around them.

Try these:

AltaVista recently added a phrase-guessing element to its algorithms. If you type a few words in, and those words are commonly found hanging together in its index, it will assume that youíre searching for them as a phrase even if you donít put quotes around them. If youíre looking for a phrase that is not common, though, youíll need the quotes.
 
Query
# Matches
+San Diego  
+"San Diego"  
+merits of laziness  
"merits of laziness"  
use lower case (usually)
Lowered  AltaVista pays attention to any capital letters you type into a query. If you search for Octopus, it will only find documents in which itís spelled that way. In general, unless you are after a particular spelling, use all lower case.
Query
# Matches
+Octopus  
+octopus  
+WebQuest  
+webquest  
+webquest*  

 
Use the link: Tag to Find Pages Linked to Another Page
Lincolnís  Suppose you found the absolutely perfect page about life in Ancient Egypt, and itís located at http://www.clpgh.org/cmnh/tours/egypt/walton.html. You suspect that any other web pages out there that contain a link to that page would also contain things that would interest your students.

If you put all or part of the URL of the page after "link:", youíll get a list of pages that are linked to the one you found useful.

Itís important that you donít capitalize "link:"
 
Query
# Matches
link:http://www.cpgh.org/cmnh/tours/egypt/walton.html  
link:http://www.clpgh.org/cmnh/tours/egypt/walton.html  
link:edweb.sdsu.edu/webquest/webquest.html  

 
Use the title: Tag to Focus Your Search
Tie  A simple search will find a word anywhere on the web page. To locate pages that are primarily about one thing, look for pages that have that thing in their title. The result is much more tightly focused.

Note: There can be a space between title: and the next word or not. It doesnít seem to matter.

As with link:, donít capitalize title:

Try these:
 
Query
# Matches
frog*  
title:frog*  
webquest  
title:webquest  
Title:webquest  

 
So, to recapÖ remembering this sentence will help you to remember the seven techniques you just experimented with:

 
My plump starfish
quickly
 lowered Lincoln's tie.
minus plus star
quotes
 lower case link: title:
-exclude
+include
wildcard*
"phrases in quotes"
case MATTERS
find pages linked
find words in the title

 
 
If you can keep these seven words in mind, youíll be a much better searcher than you were a few minutes ago!

If youíd like to check your understanding, try the Seven Steps quiz.

© Bernie Dodge
Ed Tech Dept., San Diego State University
http://edweb.sdsu.edu/webquest/searching/sevensteps.html
Reprinted with permission