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Information of every kind abounds on the World Wide Web, but finding it can be challenging, time consuming, and frustrating, even if English is your native language.
This page offers links to resources which will help you become a more efficient and productive searcher by understanding how searching works, and choosing the method which best suits your purpose.
Good luck, and happy searching!
Search Tutorials
Search tutorials offer information about searching, in theory and practice, sometimes in an interactive format.
Ask Scott: Web Searching Tutorial
This website, published by Dr. Scott Nicholson, a former university librarian, is very clearly organized and easy to follow, and includes a quiz at the end!
Bare Bones 101
A site published by the University of South Carolina's Beaufort Library, this is a great place to begin learning about searching. Simple explanations of how the most popular search engines work.
Web Search Strategies
Nicely laid out and easy to navigate, this site also offers interactive exercises, a practice page, and links to many other search tutorials on the web.
Search Engines
A search engine allows you to enter any keywords, and then searches to find those web pages that match the terms entered. To do this, search engines use automated programs called "spiders". Some search engines compile their own database of pages, while othere (metasearchers) search the databases of many other search engines simultaneously.
Google: A Closer Look
Since its creation and launch by graduate students at Stanford in 1999, Google has become the favorite search engine of many, because of the highly relevant results it supplies. Google returns pages on the basis of how many sites are linked to them, and how often they are visited. This page explains how Google works, and links you to the Google homepage.
Search IQ
Includes specialized databases, links to specialty search engines, and reviews of popular search engines.
Search Engine Reviews
From the Kansas City, this site offers reviews of the most popular search engines.
Beaucoup.com
A portal to more than 2000 search engines, indices, databases, etc.
Subject Directories
Often a good place to begin a general search. subject directories organize pages by subject in a hierarchical structure (more general to more specific), which is compiled and maintained by human editors.
Yahoo!: A Closer Look
Yahoo! is a subject directory whose content is compiled and reviewed by people, and is the oldest major directory on the Web.
Librarian's Index to the Internet
Funded by the Library of California, this site is a comprehensive and easy-to-access resource, especially of use for academic topics.
Refdesk.com
Refdesk.com is one man's passion, and has three goals: "fast access, intuitive and easy navigation and comprehensive content, rationally indexed." A marvelous resource!
The Internet Archive
A "Wayback Machine" at this digital library of Internet sites "allows people to access and use archived versions of stored websites."
Search Strategies
How you structure your search - the keywords you choose and how you enter them into a search engine - will help increase the accuracy of your searches cut down on irrelevant results.
Search Engine Math
Teaches you how to "add, subtract and multiply your way into better searches at your favorite search engine". A useful introduction to search logic.
Recommended Search Strategy
For advanced searchers only! Published by the UCB Library, this site offers detailed instruction on how to analyze your topic and choose the most effective search engines or databases. Difficult to read...
Keywords: The Essence of the Search
Helps you understand how to choose keywords for your topic in order to get the most productive results. Great for vocabulary building!
About Links
My own hot tip for more successful searching? Always look for the section of any page you visit that links to other resources on the web - chances are good that there will be something you can use that didn't turn up in your own search!
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