Search
Engine |
Address
All begin with WWW |
Include/Exclude
Shortcuts Include Exclude |
Boolean Operators Supported
AND OR NOT phrase group |
Selected Features |
AltaVista | altavista.com | + - | x x x "....." | * wildcard, multiple
languages, date range |
DejaNews | dejanews.com | & &! | x x AND NOT "....." (...) | only searches Usenet,
? wildcard |
Excite | excite.com | + - | x x AND NOT "....." (...) | Index, "more like this" |
HotBot | hotbot.com | + - | x x x "....." (...) | menu shorcuts, index |
google.com | + - | x x x "....." (...) | menu shorcuts, largest data base that includes material back to the 1980's | |
Infoseek | infoseek.com | + - | "....." | case sensitive, index |
Lycos | lycos.com | + - | x x x "....." | ADJ, NEAR, FAR,
BEFORE, index |
Magellan | mckinley.com | + - | x x AND NOT "....." (...) | Index,"Green light sites
only" |
Search | search.com | + - | "....." | case sesitive, index |
Webcrawler | webcrawler.com | + - | x x x "....." | |
Yahoo | yahoo.com | + - | "....." | * wildcard, date range,
index |
I especially like google.com. They have recently added many new resources dating back well before the Web was conceived. They also have an excellent means for continually narrowing your search. After you received your first set of hits from key words you have used (typically you will get thousands if not hundreds of thousands of hits the first time), go down the the bottom of the screen and click on the link for search within results. You get a new window that then allows you to narrow your search with new words. You can do this continuously until you find exactly the set of hits that work best for you.
Operator Quick Reference
AND or +
examples |
James AND Bond
+James +Bond |
cats AND dogs
+cats +dogs |
Sonny AND Cher
+Sonny +Cher |
New AND England AND fall
+new +England +fall |
NOT or -
examples |
Kennedy NOT assasination
+Kennedy -assassination |
antiques NOT clocks
+antiques -clocks |
Clearwater NOT Creedance
+Clearwater -Creedance |
peanut NOT butter NOT brittle
+peanut -butter -brittle |
OR
examples |
email OR e-mail | vacumn OR vacuum | Houston OR Dallas | elm OR poplar OR oak |
Phrase
examples |
"Green Eggs and Ham" | "Happiness is a
warm puppy" |
"adult literacy and
technology" |
"Declaration of
Independence" |
Grouping
examples |
(apple OR pecan) AND pie | (IBM OR Macintosh)
AND computer |
("Bill of Rights" OR
"Magna Carta") AND online |
("Malcolm Knowles" OR
("Howard McClusky") AND andragogy |
Adapted from material developed by the Ohio Literacy Resource Center, 414 White Hall, Kent State University, Kent, OH 44242 - 800.765.2897 - olrc@literacy.kent.edu
Using InfoTrac
InfoTrac is a very useful Library-developed tool for searching periodicals and finding articles. Frequently you get only the abstracts, but increasingly you can download the entire text. It is available on the Elmira College campus, as well as many other college campuses.
This should be a very useful tool for future research efforts.
Return to the home page.