introduction to searching on the internet

Introduction to Searching on the Internet:

By HAZRAT BILAL MALAKANDI KHYBER MEDICAL UNIVERSITY PESHAWAR PAKISTAN Introduction to Searching on the Internet

After the completion of this lecture, hopefully you will be able to know about:

Search Engines List of Search Engines.. How to carry out Efficient searches in Search Engines(Google.com) Specialized Search Strategies After the completion of this lecture, hopefully you will be able to know about 2 HAZRAT BILAL MALAKANDI ... KMU

Search Engines :

Search engine is software program(Website) that’s capable of looking through a collection of online sources, looking for WebPages that include particular words, phrases or topics, or meet other criteria that you set. Search Engines 3 HAZRAT BILAL MALAKANDI ... KMU

Search Engines:

Search Engine allows you to type in one or more terms, words or phrases into a search box. It then returns list of web pages that include the terms you listed. These maybe called hits, matches or results. Search Engines 4 HAZRAT BILAL MALAKANDI ... KMU

Four Most Popular Search Engines:

Google(www.google.com) Yahoo(www.yahoo.com) Microsoft(msn.com) Ask.com(www.ask.com) Four Most Popular Search Engines 5 HAZRAT BILAL MALAKANDI ... KMU

Some other search engines :

altavista.com alexa.com gigablast.com dogpile.com alltheweb.com metacrawler.com Some other search engines 6 HAZRAT BILAL MALAKANDI ... KMU

Some more resources:

There are hundreds of search engines, directories, and other websites that can prove helpful for research papers. Some of the more popular sites are: Google Scholar [ scholar.google.com ] The Internet Public Library [ ipl.org ] Answers.com [ answers.com ] Dictionary.com [ dictionary.com ] Thesaurus.com [ thesaurus.com ] Wikipedia [ wikipedia.org ] Google News [ news.google.com ] RefDesk [ refdesk.com ] The Library of Congress [ loc.gov ] Information Please [ infoplease.com ] Librarians’ Internet Index [ lii.org ] Digital Librarian [ digital-librarian.com ] Some more resources 7 HAZRAT BILAL MALAKANDI ... KMU

Some Medical Search Engines:

www.omnimedicalsearch.com www.medicinenet.com www.healthline.com www.medlineplus.gov www.hon.ch/MedHunt www.webmd.com Some Medical Search Engines 8 HAZRAT BILAL MALAKANDI ... KMU

Search Engines terms:

The group of terms that you enter into the search engine is called Query String. Choosing the terms to include in your query string is key to doing online research. To know how to use these terms you need to know how these search engines work Search Engines terms 9 HAZRAT BILAL MALAKANDI ... KMU

How search Engines work:

Most search engines use some form of what’s called Boolean logic. Boolean Logic Uses three logical tools or operators – AND, OR, NOT… to categorize WebPages and therefore help focus your search results. These operators serve to limit the enormous number of results that most web searches yield or turn your search results more relevant. How search Engines work 10 HAZRAT BILAL MALAKANDI ... KMU

AND,NOT,OR:

AND: If you link your search terms using AND you will get results that contain both terms OR: If you use OR ,it will yield results that contain either terms.. NOT: If you use NOT, it will yield results that don’t contain the terms used after the NOT keyword. AND,NOT,OR 11 HAZRAT BILAL MALAKANDI ... KMU

A general Rule :

As a general rule the more terms in your query you link with AND, the fewer results you will get… The more terms in your query string you link as OR, the more results you will get.. Be most cautious using the NOT links.. because these may eliminate results which you may actually want.. A general Rule 12 HAZRAT BILAL MALAKANDI ... KMU

Two Punctuation Marks:

In addition to these operators.. there are two punctuation marks that can be used in conjunction with Boolean operators to further focus your search results.. Quotation Marks Parenthesis Two Punctuation Marks 13 HAZRAT BILAL MALAKANDI ... KMU

Quotations Marks:

Placing a quotation mark around a complete name or phrase in your query yields results that contain that exact name or phrase… Eg .Human evolution will yield different results than “human evolution”. Quotations Marks 14 HAZRAT BILAL MALAKANDI ... KMU

Parenthesis():

Placing parenthesis around operations in your query allows you to specify the order of operations. Any operations which are contained in parenthesis will be done first, before operations that are outside the parenthesis. Eg You want to research quotations by Malcolm X that illustrate how his philosophies about race, civil rights, and integration evolved over time. You want to save time by eliminating results that refer to the 1992 Spike Lee movie called Malcolm X. Parenthesis() 15 HAZRAT BILAL MALAKANDI ... KMU

Refining your online search via ():

List First the Yes’s List all of the terms that a desirable search result must include. (“Malcolm X” AND quotes) So in our search engine search box we will link our Yes’s with AND operators. Refining your online search via () 16 HAZRAT BILAL MALAKANDI ... KMU

List the No’s:

List the No’s now. List all of the terms that the desirable search results MUST NOT include. (“Spike Lee” OR movie) So our query string till now is going to be like this. (“Malcolm X” AND quotes) NOT (“Spike Lee” OR movie) List the No’s 17 HAZRAT BILAL MALAKANDI ... KMU

List the Maybe’s:

List the Maybe’s now List all of the terms that a desirable search result MIGHT include. (race OR “Civil Rights” OR integration) So our final query string is like this now (“Malcolm X” AND quotes) NOT (“Spike Lee” OR movie) AND (race OR “Civil Rights” OR integration) List the Maybe’s 18 HAZRAT BILAL MALAKANDI ... KMU

Not’s can be the most troublesome:

The NOT term can be tricky; if they cut out too many sites, experiment with eliminating them. Not’s can be the most troublesome 19 HAZRAT BILAL MALAKANDI ... KMU

Another Example:

Suppose you want to write a paper about the causes of Clinical Depression So our Query string can be like this (Depression AND Causes) NOT(great OR Economic) AND (Psychiatry OR “Mental Illness”) Another Example 20 HAZRAT BILAL MALAKANDI ... KMU

Notice that:

Google and many other search engines automatically eliminate common words from your search strings like THE ,WHICH,FOR TO, these would not be considered part of the query… If you need a particular common word to be part of your search use quotation marks to include it in the specific phrase you are looking for. Eg “A day in the life”. Notice that 21 HAZRAT BILAL MALAKANDI ... KMU

Variations in Search Engines:

Search Engines vary in carrying out these Boolean searches..Mostly these days many search engines including Google use symbols instead of AND ,OR & NOT. + = AND | = OR - = NOT AND is the default for many search engines. Variations in Search Engines 22 HAZRAT BILAL MALAKANDI ... KMU

Google Ranking:

Google treats all terms as AND links but gives higher ranking to pages that Contain all the terms Contain the words in close proximity.. Are popular among other users.. Google Ranking 23 HAZRAT BILAL MALAKANDI ... KMU

Google ignores Parenthesis so then what..?:

How to perform a complex query search if you are using Google. Mention all the Yes’s separated by space and surrounded by quotation marks. Mention each of the No’s preceded by the minus sign. Mention the Maybe’s separated by the OR . Google ignores Parenthesis so then what..? 24 HAZRAT BILAL MALAKANDI ... KMU

Google Example:

(“Malcolm X” AND quotes) NOT (“Spike Lee” OR movie) AND (race OR “Civil Rights” OR integration) Becomes “Malcolm X” quotes –“spike lee” – movie race OR “civil rights” OR integration Also we can do searches with individual Maybe’s eg “Malcolm X” quotes –“spike lee” –movie race Google Example 25 HAZRAT BILAL MALAKANDI ... KMU

Advanced Search:

Provides graphical or form view of all the operators we have studied so far… so very good in executing..and very user friendly.. Advanced Search 26 HAZRAT BILAL MALAKANDI ... KMU

Specialized Search Strategies.:

Google and some other search engines automatically search for words that share the same stem as one of your search terms… this is known as stemming.. eg Picasso’s Painting On Google and some other search engines you can have synonyms included in a search by inserting tilde(~) before a search term.. example early music recording..or early sound recording.. Specialized Search Strategies. 27 HAZRAT BILAL MALAKANDI ... KMU

Wildcards:

Some search engines including Google usually allow you to use wildcards in your search Wildcard characters are special characters usually asterisk( * ) or question mark ( ? ) that take the place of unknown characters in words or unknown words within phrases.. Wildcards 28 HAZRAT BILAL MALAKANDI ... KMU

Wildcards example:

Wildcards are specially useful when spellings are only partially known or vary. Eg Muammar Qaddafi’s spellings are not known to us..…. So * addafi will yield either Q or G.. A wildcard is also useful in the following situation. eg (American * war). This will yield either Civil ,revolutionary.. Or any other stuff.. Wildcards example 29 HAZRAT BILAL MALAKANDI ... KMU

More Search Tips….Numbers:

Suppose you want to find only sources published in, or dealing with, the year 2003 Eg “Cricket World Cup “2003 If a range of years is desired.. You will use two dots(periods) between the numbers used for the year figure eg 2003..2008 More Search Tips….Numbers 30 HAZRAT BILAL MALAKANDI ... KMU

More search Tips..Website search :

You can even focus your search on a particular website.. You can create a particular query string and add the site name to it. site:xyz.com For domains use site:edu Google images are good for images. Charts..paintings etc Always read FAQs or Help page More search Tips..Website search 31 HAZRAT BILAL MALAKANDI ... KMU

More search Tips..Filetype :

Google also lets you use filetype searches i.e searches pertaining to the type of files you will be getting like .doc or . pdf Filetype:doc Filetype:pdf The inurl : prefix will ensure the keyword to be present in the url . If there are more than two keywords you can use allinurl : prefix. eg inurl : searchterm filetype:doc eg allinurl : searchterm filetype:doc More search Tips.. Filetype 32 HAZRAT BILAL MALAKANDI ... KMU

More Tips..:

Intile : keyword filetype:doc Allintitle : keyword keyword2 filetype:doc Intext : keyword filetype:doc Allintext : keyword1 keyword2 filetype:doc Link:www.kmu.edu.pk Related:www.kmu.edu.pk More Tips.. 33 HAZRAT BILAL MALAKANDI ... KMU

Conclusion :

As we discussed ,conducting an online search can be very complicated..Search engines vary quite a bit in different capabilities..tricks and tips constantly being developed and each one apply Boolean logic somehow the same or different way..One lesson is always use help or FAQs pages on a search engine.. Conclusion 34 HAZRAT BILAL MALAKANDI ... KMU

Conclusion…:

Don’t always select the first two or three pages you get in your search..Chances are good that these results need to be further tweaked in order to be truly useful..so always do search at least a few times and don’t always rely on the first two or three search results you may be getting. Chances are good that you may add ANDs , Ors or Nots to further spruce up your results.. Conclusion… 35 HAZRAT BILAL MALAKANDI ... KMU

Any Questions?:

And Thank you very much!!!! Any Questions? 36 HAZRAT BILAL MALAKANDI ... KMU Bilal_kmu02@yahoo.com