Beginning An Internet Subject Search

BEGINNING AN INTERNET SUBJECT SEARCH

Decide on a Search Engine

A search engine sorts through available information on the internet. Be sure to remember that a search engine looks for the topics and words you tell it too. Therefore, when deciding to do a search, make sure you choose your keywords with caution.

Search engines such as Alta Vista, Lycos, Excite, and Infoseek look through indexes of words and automatically index them. They will search through texts and font matches. Yahoo will give information organized by subject. It's a subject index which means it searches through its subject categories, and it will give you a list of matching subjects. Do searches on several engines as they frequently produce different "hits" or "matches".

Keywords

Choose keywords carefully. Too general a word such as war, will produce an unimaginable number of matches, but your keyword, if too specific, may produce no matches.
Choose synonyms. alternate words, or even a specific modifier, such as Vietnam War, to develop more subject matches.
Expand or condense your search by using Boolean logic. To expand, insert OR between your keyword string. To condense, use AND between keywords. For additional information see .

Be aware that search engines may be case sensitive or have its own idiosyncrasies. Always read the directions for the search engines that you choose.

Last Updated: January, 2006
Patricia A. Hutchins