04 Search Technique Notes
by joshuaaa
General Questions
- In blogs, the title can be whatever you want it, but the last part of the URL has to be the [blog: title]
- Bloglist is a program that goes through all the blogs and orders them in a particular fashion
- Easy to rename pages, down at bottom of page: click options, rename
- It sometimes may be easier to use a text editor rather than type in your web pages
Don’t forget, bullets are asterisks and numbered lists are pound signs
How to Create a Blog Entry
- Type "blog:name of blog" at the end of your personal wiki page URL (or type it in the “add new page” box)
Why Do Search Engines Return Different Results?
- Different files that they index
- Different search syntax accepted
- Processing of search results differ, different back-ends
Why Use a Search Engine?
- The main point of using a search engine is to find information fast
- Goal of class is to become masters of search techniques
- The simplest tools are the words and phrases you type in
- Some operators target specific parts of a document (i.e. intitle:subject)
- Others target the URL
- flintstones inurl:umich OR inurl:lib
- Some target sites
- flintstones site:www.lib.umich.edu OR site:umich.edu
Helpful hints
- Unique words and phrases are key
- Make your queries as specific as possible, as early as possible
- You have to realize the different ways things can be named or referred to
- Formal references: last name, first name
- Places can be more problematic
- Use zip or area codes
Search Engine Practice
- Use related searches to narrow your query
- Open queries in new window – less easy to close a query
- Try to think of what the document would be called or what kind of information it would contain when searching
- Directory function of Yahoo is like “tree tagging” – not random, but in categories
- [Define] function returns specific results, just like weather or map
- Ideally, put what you would like to find in your results as your query
To view Dr. Moore's outline for this class, click here
page revision: 9, last edited: 09 Nov 2009 16:36