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Easy Internet Search Tips
Tips that really work
THINK about your search BEFORE you start searching!
Spend 2 minutes planning your search and you will find your information 10 minutes faster!
1. Decide exactly what you want to know! Otherwise you can spend hours exploring aimlessly on the web. For example: What was Ronald Reagan like as a boy?
2. Make a list of what information you want to find. For example: a photograph of Ronald Reagan when he was a boy.
3. Identify keywords. For example: photograph, picture, “President Reagan”, “Ronald Reagan” , child, boy.
Choose a search engine and stick with it.
Every search engine works a little differently. Pick one, like Google, and stick with it. As you learn how it works, you will find your information more easily. If you use Google, spend some time exploring this page; it will teach you how to find information on Google. http://www.google.com/help/index.html If you use another search engine, do not learn how to use it by reading the Google page! Each search engine works a little differently and has its own “how to” page.
Use Quotation Marks
For example: searching for “Ronald Reagan” will give you information on Ronald Reagan. But searching for Ronald Reagan (not in quotation) could give you information on Ronald McDonald or Nancy Reagan.
Use Advanced Search!
Use Advanced search to get better results. For example, if you are looking for information about pirates, and you keep finding information on the Pittsburgh Pirates (baseball) go to Advanced search, where you can type in words that you do not want in your results. (In Google, near the top of the Advance Search Page is Find results without the words _________.) If you type Pittsburgh and baseball, you will eliminate a lot of the sites that you do not want.
Learn how to tell whether the website you found is any good!
See: evaluate websites
Otherwise the information you find might be wrong. Remember, anyone can make a website! You might find information that was created by a guy who loves a subject but has no real expertise in it, so his website is a mixture of fact and myth. Sometimes websites are written by people who purposely lie to try to get you to believe something. Unfortunately, both of these types of websites are VERY common! You cannot tell how good a website is by looking at the quality of the graphics.