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TeachMeInternet.com
Pauline Wallin, Ph.D.
Search Tips
General Search Tips
- Experiment with different browsers. Windows computers come
pre-loaded with Internet Explorer. But there are other browsers that
offer
more secure Web surfing, with more features. Macintosh users have the
Safari browser. Windows and Mac users can
surf
with Netscape and Firefox. Besides added security, these
alternate browsers offer features that IE does not, including "tabbed"
browsing, pop-up blockers, cookie managers and built-in Google
searchboxes.
For more details click on the links above.
- Pay attention to the order of the words in your search terms.
Search
engines usually assign the most importance to the first word. Thus, a
search for alcohol rehabilitation yields results that are
different
from a search for rehabilitation alcohol.
- Note that some URLs are case-sensitive. Therefore, when entering a URL in
the address box of your browser, make sure you type in capital letters if
they are part of the URL.
- Most search engines are not case-sensitive. When typing in your
search term, it's not usually necessary to type capital letters for
names.
- When searching, try not to make spelling errors. While some
search
engines will offer alternative spellings for commonly misspelled words
(e.g., If you type "pychology" in the search box Google will ask, "Did
you
mean psychology?") you can't count on them to catch all errors.
Most
search engines are essentially robots that look for exactly what you
type in
the search box.
- Use the tabbed browsing feature of Safari, Firefox and
Netscape.
This is especially useful when clicking on different links within a
given
set of search results. It keeps them all together, in one browser
window,
with a tab for each website at the top of the window. To use tabbed
browsing you can set the browser's preferences or options to
automatically
open links in a new tab. Or, you can just right-click on a link and
click
"Open in new tab" in the pop-up menu.
- If you're using IE (no tabbed browsing,) you can open links in
different windows, while keeping the original search results page
intact. To
open a new window, right-click on the link and in the pop-up menu click
on
"Open link in new window". Note: This page has been set to
automatically open each link in a new window, so you won't need to use
this
tip here.
- When you have several windows open in your browser, you can
access
them from the task bar at the bottom of the screen, which displays the
names
of all open windows (not available on Macintosh operating systems.)
Another
option is to click on the "Windows" menu on the toolbar at the top of
the
browser. This will display a dropdown menu showing all open windows.
You can
also change the size of the front window to make it a little smaller
than
the one behind it. This makes both windows accessible with a click of
the
mouse on the edge of the window.
- Most URLs begin with www and end with .com. To type these in
the
addres box of Internet Explorer automatically, hit Ctrl + Enter.
- If you find that on some frequently used Web sites you
routinely go
to a secondary page within that Web site you can create a shortcut to
that
page on your browser bar, so that you don't have to navigate through
the
main window of the Web site. Next time you click to the page you
desire,
highlight and drag the URL (within the address bar) to the main toolbar
of
your browser. Next time you want to visit the embedded web page, you
have
an instant link which is handier than going through the Bookmarks or
Favorites
- All search engines have a Help button to guide you through the
search process. Most also have a "power search" or "advanced" button
that
allows you to refine your search options.
- Error message strategies: If you happen to follow a link to a web site, and you get a
"Not found" message, the page may have moved or may no longer exist. Try
deleting the last suffix off the URL in the address window and press Enter. (If
this doesn't work, try deleting successive suffixes.) This may take you to a
preceding page in the web site, which may point you to the information
you need.
- Another strategy for "Not Found" is to look for cached pages.
Google
stores old copies of web pages. Just go over to the Google site, and
enter
your search term again. Instead of clicking on a regular link in the
page
of results, click on the word "cached" beside it, and you'll be taken
to the
old page, if such a page existed. Yahoo also has this feature.
To
Broaden Your Search, or For More General Information
- Use one of the directories such as Yahoo's or Google's. For
general
psychological information check Amoebaweb, Psychweb or another mental health hub.
- For information about a specific diagnosis or condition, add the
search term association or foundation to your search
terms.
e.g., ADHD association. This will usually produce hits from
organizations that specialize in that area, and which contain a wide
variety
of information specific to that area.
- Enter more than one search word. Use the Boolean operator "OR"
(in
upper case) which is available in the "Advanced search" option on some
of
the major search engines. Alternatively, some search engines have a
drop
down menu where you can choose the option to use "any of the words" (as
opposed to "all of the words" or "exact phrase.")
- Use wild cards (truncation). A wild card is typically an
asterisk
that you put at the end of a partial word, e.g. alcoho* This will
retrieve
words beginning with those letters, including alcohol, alcoholic,
alcoholism, etc. You can also use wild in the middle of a word to get
variations in spelling and meaning e.g., wom*n.
- If you land on a website and you want to find others similar to
it,
use the Google feature, "Find Similar" or the Teoma feature, "find
related."
Also, some metasearch engines, e.g., Ixquick, Webcrawler, have a
"related
searches" option at the top of the search page, giving you suggestions
of
similar search terms.
- If you don't find what you're looking for, try an alternative
search term. For example, if you don't get good hits from the search word
"epilepsy," try "seizures." Also, try a different search engine, since
even the major ones (Yahoo, Google, etc.) are capable of indexing at best
only about one third of the web.
- Google can search for synonyms of the words you enter into the
search
box. Simple type "~" (without the quotes) in front of your search
term.
For example, if you search for ~polygraph you will also get results
containing "lie detector". A search for ~dui yields pages on "drunk
driving."
To Narrow
Your
Search, or For More Specific Information
- Use quotes around search terms of two or more words. For
example, if
you enter the words custody evaluation without quotes enclosing
them,
the search engine will look for pages and documents containing the
words
custody and evaluation, but not necessarily occurring
together. This will result in many irrelevant hits. To avoid this, put
quotes around the term: "custody evaluation". The search engine will
look
for documents containing these words only when they occur as a phrase.
Some
search engines don't require quotation marks. They have menus where you
specify whether you want to search for "exact phrase" or "all the
words."
- Use the Boolean operators AND or NOT to narrow
your
search. Some search engines use the mathematical symbols + and -
preceding
the words you want to include or exclude, instead of AND and NOT. Most
search engines default to "AND", so it's usually not necessary to type
it
in.
- Certain words such as "a" and "the" are ignored by most search
engines. If you want the search engine to recognize the word "A" (as
in
Type A personality) enter it this way: +type +a +personality.
- The Boolean operator NOT (or the mathematical symbol -) can be
useful. For example, psychoanalysis NOT freud (or psychoanalysis
-freud)
will yield pages and documents that deal with psychoanalysis, but
screen out
all those that mention Freud.
- Be as specific as possible in your search. This will reduce the
number of irrelevant hits. For example, if you are looking for outcome
studies of depression treated with medication, your search terms should
include depression medication outcome. If you enter only
"depression"
into the search box, you will be flooded with options, most of them
irrelevant to your search.
- Use the "Advanced search" option, available on most search
engines.
There you can specify not only your search terms, but also the types of
web
pages you're looking for, the dates, and other options.
- Some search engines e.g., Google, Teoma, make suggestions for
related search terms or concepts. Look for these as links among the individual
results.
-
Use a search engine or metasearch engine that clusters results into
categories, e.g., Vivisimo, Teoma, Turbo10.
- Looking for research papers or other articles of a scholarly
nature?
Add the word abstract to your search terms. Since most
scholarly
articles begin with an abstract, they will appear at the top of the
list of
hits.
- Get real-time help from an online librarian. Many
college and
public libraries have librarians online, ready to help you with your
search,
either via e-mail, or in real-time chat. At some of these you need to
be a
member. Check your local library's web site
to see if this service is available.
Alternatively, you can try free general online resources such as these:
- 24/7 Reference: This is a project of the
Metropolitan Cooperative Library System (MCLS), supported by Federal
LSTA
funding, administered by the California State Library.
- Ask a Librarian from the Library of Congress: This site has some chat
hours, as well as help via email.
Navigating Within and Printing Browser Pages
- To quickly find a specific word or phrase in a text-heavy web
page, use the "Find" command from the Edit menu of your browser.
(In Windows, use the keyboard shortcut CTRL-F.)
- Before printing a page, use the "Page setup" feature under the
"File"
menu. You can set margins, turn headers and footers off and on, and
select
which pages to print. In Macintosh, with "Print Preview" you can make
the
font smaller (in order to use less paper) and turn images off.
- If you cut and paste text from a web page to your word
processor, you
might get strange margins and line spacings. This is because of the
HTML
format of the web page. To avoid this problem, use the "Paste Special"
feature under Edit in your word processor. In the dropdown menu select
"unformatted text." This will paste only the text itself, without the
formatting.
- Sometimes a news story or journal article is written on two or
more
successive web pages. To avoid having to click from one page to the
next,
look for a "Print this page" option on the web page itself. It's
usually
near the top or bottom of the page. This doesn't automatically print
the
page, but presents a more printer-friendly display, with all the text
on a
single page.
- To copy or print parts of .pdf documents: If you want to
copy
and paste part of the text of a .pdf (Adobe) document, You can't just
click
and drag the mouse to highlight text, as you would in a word processor.
To
copy, click on the Text Tool icon. Click your mouse at the beginning
of the
text you want to select, and drag it to the end point of your
selection.
Right-click to "copy" (or click on the "copy" command in the Edit menu
at
the top), and then paste the data into your word processor. If you
want to
print a specific selection of a .pdf document, use the Graphics Select
tool
(next to the Text tool icon). You will then print only the part you
have
outlined.
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