Web Searching Skills

There are three basic ways to find information on the web: (1) use a web tool designed for searching; (2) use the resources of a "gateway" site that provides links for a particular subject and (3) "surf" the web on your own. All have advantages, but here we will focus on the first as it can quickly lead to the type of information that will be useful for you and your students.

The web provides its own search tools, and new ones appear each year. Some older favorites include Excite!, Alta Vista, InfoSeek, Yahoo! and Lycos. All have useful but differing features, so it may pay to switch between these search engines as your needs dictate. Newer to the club is Google, which many folks enjoy because of its lack of advertising. Google also caches (stores) web pages, so that you can avoid "not found" errors and sometimes more quickly access sites. Also newer is All 4 One, a meta-search engine that simultaneously submits to sites such as AltaVista, AOL, Excite, HotBot, Lycos, Infoseek, Northernlights and WebCrawler.

There is no charge for using these search tools, but since many have commercial sponsors, you will find that annoying advertising and "screen clutter" accompany the results of your search (except for Google).

No search program can find everything on the web. In fact, most don't even come close. Most of the excellent science and government sites (such as the EPA, NASA, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, etc), are easily located, as these sites have been around for years and are linked to numerous other sites. However, if you are not locating the information you want with the search tool that you are accustomed to using, switch to another one, at least temporarily.

Which search engine should you use? It probably doesn't matter, as long as you learn to utilize its features and are willing to keep an eye out for new developments elsewhere. Look for these features in the one you select:

• Has a quick and easy search mechanism available, backed up by more powerful tools if needed
• Can handle "normal" language, such a question or a phrase
• Has indexed a sizeable number of science sites
• Will spell check your search
• Is not so complex that it overwhelms the user with information

To use a search engine, you first must construct what is called a "query" that contains "key words" or other language to guide your search. A query is simply a way of telling the program what you want it to find. For example, if you want to find information about the weather in Boston (where you are going to present a poster on your chemistry project), you might simply type in "Boston, weather". There are other more specialized ways to speedily find the weather, and most people, once they have located a weather site (i.e., weather.com), will skip the search and simply go there.

More generally speaking, queries are constructed in one of two ways:

1. A quick and dirty search, using one key word or a set of words, separated by commas. Usually a minimum of punctuation is needed. For example, here are some words you might enter to quickly find out about a particular topic:
         ozone
         radon
         Human Genome Project
         lithium battery
   If you search in this manner, you are likely to bring up thousands of hits. For example, searching for ozone will net you chemical information about the gas ozone, information about ground level ozone as an air pollutant, ozone depletion in the stratosphere, household ozone generators or a variety of other contexts where ozone plays a role. In spite of the large amount of information that a search like this returns, you still may easily be able to spot what you want by scanning the first 10 hits (or so). Thus, it is not always necessary to construct a lengthy or detailed search. However, if you do not quickly see what you want, refine your search by adding key words such as "ozone layer", "depletion", or "stratosphere". If you know that the EPA or NASA has some of the information that you are seeking, add these names to your search terms as well.

2. a more advanced search, using words such as AND, OR, NOT and NEAR (a Boolean search)
         ozone layer AND depletion AND stratosphere NOT smog
          "I-131" or "Iodine-131" or "radioactive iodine" AND "radioisotope"

In this spirit, here are some tips for searching:

• Try something simple first. It may work.
• Include chemical words in your search, as these may be unique.
• If you aren't getting what you want, switch to another search strategy or another search engine.
  The better your query, the better chance you have of finding what you want.
• Don't worry if you get thousands of matches. Check the first 10 or 20 and ignore the rest.

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