1: Searching for information on the web

Overview
The Web is one of the services available through the Internet, which allows user to search
and retrieve information from any documents (web pages). The interconnected
documents and other resources are linked by hyperlinks and URLs. A search engine is a
computer program that searches documents for specified keywords and returns a list of
the documents where the keywords were found. Popular systems used are like Google
and Bing that enable users to search for documents on the World Wide Web. Search
engines may vary in term of number of hits returned and their search syntax. There are
few search strategies when using search engine: 1) Identify your concepts; 2) Make a list
of search terms/keywords for each concept; 3) Specify the logical relationships among
your search terms; 4) Be specific.

Example of English Search Tools

Web Address
Search Tool
Search Engine Subject Directory
A9.com a9.com
AlltheWeb alltheweb.com
AltaVista altavista.com
AOL Search search.aol.com yellowpages.aol.com
Ask.com ask.com
Dogpile dogpile.com
Excite excite.com excitedirectory.com
Gigablast gigablast.com dir.gigablast.com
Google google.com dir.google.com
Live Search live.com
Lycos lycos.com
MSN msn.com specials.msn.com
Netscape Search search.netscape.com
Open Directory Project dmoz.org dmoz.org
Overture overture.com
WebCrawler webcrawler.com
Yahoo! yahoo.com dir.yahoo.com

Example of Search Operators

Operator Name Examples Explanation
Space or + AND art+music / art music result both art and music words
OR OR dog or puppy result have either dog or puppy word
- NOT automobile -convertible result have automobile but do not have
convertible
th
“…” Quotation “19 century literature” results have the exact phrase
Marks
* Truncation writer* results include any word begins with
writer.
~ ~flying results will return synonym words like
aviation, air, and airplane
site: Search iraq site:nytimes.com results will return pages about Iraq but
within a only from nytimes.com.
specific
website

A. Exercise: Answers the questions given by tutor using a search engines. Try to find the
information as accurate and as fast as possible.

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

B. Google’s Advanced Search Page

1. Type www.google.com in your browser’s address bar and press Enter.
2. Click Advanced Search
3. Enter words for which you want to search – as well as ones that should be omitted
from the results – in the results – in the Find Results fields.
4. Click the down arrow and choose how many results you want displayed per page.
5. To limit results to pages that feature a particular language, click the Languages
and select the desired language.
6. If the page you seek is of a particular type – say, PDF – use the File Format
settings to limit results to this format.
7. Use the Occurrences setting to indicate where on the page the keywords should
appear – for example, anywhere on the page, in its title, and so on.
8. To omit sites with adult content from your results, click Filter Using Safe Search.
9. Click Google Search.
10. Google displays the results of your search with links to pages that match your
keyword entries.

C. Set Your Google Search Preferences

1. Type www.google.com in your browser’s address bar and press Enter.
2. Click Preferences
3. Click the Interface Language and select the language you want Google to use in
tips and messages to you.
4. To limit results to pages written in particular languages, click Search Only for
Pages written in these languages.
5. Click the check box next to each desired language.
 6. Adjust the filter level of Google’s SafeSearch feature to allow or disallow pages
with explicit content.
7. Click the number of results to change how many links appear on each result page.
8. Click Save Preferences
9. Click OK.

D. Google’s Image Search

1. Type www.google.com in your browser’s address bar and press Enter.
2. Click Images.
3. Type your search word or phrase
4. Click search images
5. Click a thumbnail image
6. Google displays the page that contains the image.

E. Google Book Search

1. Type www.google.com in your browser’s address bar and press Enter.
2. Click more
3. Click Books
4. Type your search word or phrase
5. Click Search Books
6. Click an entry in the list

F. Google Articles Search

1. Type www.google.com in your browser’s address bar and press Enter.
2. Click on more and select Scholar
3. Type your search word or phrase
4. Click Search
5. The search results will be returned.