For additional assistance, contact the Lakeland Library Reference Desk at 440.525.7425 or [email protected] Lakeland Library Research Guides http://library.lakelandcc.edu/internet.html Web Search Tips How Search Engines Work All web search engines have advanced searches. Advanced searches show Boolean boxes and options to choose format, date range and domain name for a more accurate search producing more accurate results. • Search engines match terms or keywords. The best searches use accurate keywords combined with the most appropriate Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT), wildcards and phrases. Natural language (How far is it to the moon?) searches are not as efficient as keyword searches (distance AND moon.) All search engines work the same way (the web, Lakeland Library and OhioLINK catalogs and in the OhioLINK databases) only the punctuation differs. • Search engines rank results by relevancy or date. Relevancy refers to the frequency and placement of keywords found on the webpage. Webpages with keywords in titles/first paragraphs or with keywords occurring frequently rank higher in relevancy than those with a single keyword in the last paragraph. • Sponsored links and top results are often purchased by advertisers regardless of relevancy. Sponsored links may appear at the top or on a sidebar or both. Look further down the page for your results. AND + (narrows search) Combines terms Requires webpage to have BOTH sets of terms or it’s not a match. (Same as “all the words” search) “avian influenza” AND transmission OR , (broadens search) Accepts any term EITHER term will match. (Same as “any of the words” search) “bird flu” OR “avian influenza” Phrase: terms placed in quotes returns the exact phrase in quotes Wildcard: * ! $ returns psychology, psychologists, psychological, etc. “weapons of mass destruction” psycholog* Use Advanced SearchesLakeland Library Research Guides http://library.lakelandcc.edu/internet.html Web Search Tips Order books, find and read articles, read full-text journals and e-books 24/7 at library.lakelandcc.edu Librarians’ Internet Index Google Scholar Other Searches The Mission of the Librarians’ Internet Index is to provide a well-organized point of access for reliable, trustworthy, librarian-selected websites. http://lii.org Before you Google, look here! The Librarian’s Internet Index lists only the best sites on the web for each topic. • Directory for websites by broad category • Simple and Advanced Searches • Blog, news and librarian-developed search engines • Valuable search engine tips Google Scholar searches the web for scholarly journal articles, conference papers, book reviews, etc. in data-bases and on websites. In Scholar’s preferences, users can pick OhioLINK to search for an online copy. Example: World-wide direct uses of geothermal energy 2000 - Find it with OLinks JW Lund, Geothermics, 2001 - iga.igg.cnr.it Click on Find it with OLinks. If full text is available online, just click on the Full text link. Not all articles are available in full text. Wikipedias These user-edited encyclopedias are not authoritative sources of scholarly information. Although many entries are well done, there is no supervision for the accuracy of the content and it can be (and has been) changed at will by another user. Lakeland Librarians recommend students verify through other scholarly sources any information gathered from a wikipedia. InfoMine http://www.infomine.ucr.edu This website offers a simple search for all topics or specialized search engines for each academic discipline. IPL (Internet Public Library) http://www.ipl.org An excellent online reference room for research on topics, dictionaries, encyclopedias, even literary criticism. Clusty http://clusty.com Clusty lists related subtopics to the left of search results. Handy for narrowing a topic. For instance, searching on moon creates subheadings for photos, moon’s orbit, earth and moon, space, astronomy etc. Click on a subtopic and only results that apply to it will appear. Does not search Google or Yahoo. Complete Planet http://completeplanet.com/ Find in-depth information with one search through Complete Planet. It scans thousands of searchable databases and specialty search en-gines that Google misses. Dogpile http://www.dogpile.com Searches Google, Yahoo, LookSmart, Ask-Jeeves/Teoma, Google ADS, MSN search. Sites that have purchased ranking and inclusion are blended in. Watch for Sponsored by... links below search results. (From UC