If you're new to the internet, you'll likely be impressed with the number of "hits" you receive when you conduct a search on one of the many engines available. After all, if you want to learn about dogs online, you'll find literally millions of locations where the word "dog" appears on the page. However, you might become frustrated when your results represent a mind-numbingly wide range of uses for the word, "dog." You might find pages dedicated to man's best friend; you might also find pages about the Al Pacino film, Dog Day Afternoon. How can you spend less time searching for information and more time finding information online?
Experts in database management may turn first to Boolean logic - a form of reasoning that focuses on the relationships between ideas. Many search engines, particularly in their "advanced" modes, support the use of Boolean indicators such as AND, OR, and NOT. Thus, you may requesr: car OR engine. Making this request, you'd receive links to all of the pages that include at least one of these terms, as well as those pages that include both. You might request car AND engine. This time, the responses would be fewer; the search engine would seek only those pages that include both of those terms. Finally, you might request car NOT engine. Here, the search would be a little more precise, seeking every page with car in its text, but rejecting those that also include engine. Borrowing from our previous example, you might conduct a search for dog NOT Pacino to ensure that your response doesn't include Dog Day Afternoon - or even a reference to Al Pacino's dogs.
To learn more about Boolean indicators, visit this website maintained by the University at Albany Library: http://www.albany.edu/library/internet/boolean.html
Some users might be confused by Boolean indicators. Fortunately, there are simpler ways to sharpen your searches through the use of the plus key, the minus key, and quotation marks. These key strokes can save minutes or hours of time when you're seeking a particular piece of information.
The plus key (+) instructs the search engine to seek two or more words on the same page. In other words, if I want to conduct a search for websites that reference highway and motel, I would type +highway +motel. What's the difference between that approach and merely typing highway motel? A recent Altavista search reveals that the latter search (no plus signs) resulted in 1,104,410 pages. The former (adding the plus sign) reduced the number of hits to 23,310. Not impressed? Add a third word to the mix such as Cupertino and the difference is even more noticeable. If I want to find a motel on the highway near the city of Cupertino, I might type Cupertino highway motel. The results? About 2,426,335 pages that include one or more of those words. Add plus signs (+Cupertino +highway +motel) and the number of webpages is slashed to 60. Add the plus sign to your searches and reduce the amount of time you spend sifting through webpages.
The minus key (-) works like the Boolean NOT to ensure that you limit your searches. Let's say you want to learn more about the city of Clinton, Arkansas. Type Clinton into Altavista and you might receive 1,374,595 hits. The first one might be about the First Lady. Add Arkansas to the search (Clinton Arkansas) and the first hit you receive could be a page purporting to know the "real" location of Bill Clinton's father in Arkansas. However, if you type Clinton Arkansas -Bill -president -Hillary, the first page you'll receive focuses on the town in Arkansas. As with the plus sign, the minus helps limit your searches, focusing the results more closely to your research needs.
A third powerful tool available in virtually every search engine is the use of quotation marks to indicate that you seek a specific phrase. Up until now, we've discussed strategies that influence search engines to provide terms that may or may not be close to each other. However, with the use of quotation marks, you take control. It's either your chosen phrase or nothing. Here's an example: if you want to learn more about a college course entitled Rhetoric and Public Life, you might type that phrase into Altavista. However, you'll receive 327,655 hits. Place quotes around the phrase ("Rhetoric and Public Life") and you'll receive two, both concerning the specific college course with that name.
One final tool at your disposal is to employ these strategies in various combinations. Thus, if you want to learn more about a bed and breakfast in Paris, but not the city located in France, you would type +bed +breakfast +Paris -France. Similarly, if you wanted to learn how many folks, other than Spock, have uttered the phrase "Live Long and Prosper," you might try this search "Live Long and Prosper" -Spock. Keep in mind that each of the examples I've used in this module were taken from searches run on a particular day. Your results will surely vary. But one thing will not change: practice your searches with these suggestions in mind, and your research will prosper without taking too long.
Exercise: Using the Altavista search engine below, try some sample searches - using either Boolean indicators or the simpler key strokes described in this module.
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