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| IV. GENERAL WEB SURFING: USING WEB SEARCH TOOLS After you conduct exhaustive research using Web databases, you may want to look for information and opinion found on free Websites. This is often referred to as "general Web surfing." Be cautious, however, when searching for free Websites. As you know, you might find highly accurate and reliable information at one Website, and complete falsehoods at another. Two types of Web search tools are available to help you find Websites and/or Web pages: subject directories and search engines. It's important to understand the difference between them so that you use the appropriate tool for the kind of information you seek. Let's examine each separately. SUBJECT DIRECTORIES Web subject directories (such as Yahoo!) provide lists of Websites (and other Internet documents) arranged by subject category. Each site in the directory is listed under one or more subject categories, as determined by the directory's indexers. A brief description of each site listed is usually included. Directories are often a good place to start when you’re looking for information on relatively general subjects, or if you want an overview of what is available on the Web on a given subject. (Seeking broad information in this way corresponds to Step 2 of the research process.) There are two ways to use a subject directory:
There is wide variation in the number and quality of sites included in different Web subject directories, as well as in the amount of descriptive information provided for the listed sites. Many of the best-known directories, such as Yahoo! or Excite, try to be as comprehensive as possible, with very extensive listings. However, one disadvantage of these large directories is that they usually do little, if any, evaluation of the quality of the sites they list, thus making it difficult to find the best sites in a particular subject area. For that reason, you are wise to use a subject directory that only
lists sites known to be high quality. These directories are known
as selective directories. In addition
to only indexing credible Websites, selective directories often
provide links to other specialized sites, which in turn, provide
links to even more specific high-quality documents in a particular
subject area. Recommended selective directories:
SEARCH ENGINES Web search engines (such as AskJeeves, Google, AltaVista, and many others) allow you to search through millions of Websites by your own keyword(s). Websites gathered and indexed by search engines are not selected, organized or previewed by humans. Instead, their collection of Websites are created entirely by computer programs called spiders (also known as robots) that continuously scan the Internet looking for sites to add to the index. Since the collection of Websites indexed by search engines are
huge (numbering in the millions) and have no subject organization
at all, it is very important to think carefully about what search
words to use and be aware of the various search features available
before performing a search. Always look for the "Search Help,"
"Search Tips," or other pages that explain the features
of the particular search engine you're using. Remember that Web
search engines, unlike library online catalogs, do not use a common
set of subject headings. Therefore, to use search engines effectively,
it is usually best to have very precise search words or phrases;
or to combine several search terms using Boolean logic (as described
in Lesson 7). COMMON FEATURES OF WEB SEARCH ENGINES Listed below are features and capabilities common to many search engines. Keep in mind, however, that these features may not work the same -- or even be available -- on every search engine.
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