1. Search Strategies
Are you having trouble finding what you want on the internet? Here are a few search strategies that will help you quickly and efficiently find what you are looking for.

2. Search Engines
When beginning an internet search, what do you do first?
When looking for information about Antarctica, would you type in
Let’s see what happens-

4. Search Engines
Okay, that didn’t work.
Let’s try

5. Search Engines So, the “dot.com” formula doesn’t seem to work.
What can we use to search for topics of interest?
What “search engines” have you used? Which ones do you like best and why?
There are several out there, and they each have their own usefullness.

6. Search Engines
For younger students or very basic easy to read information:
( is the adult version)
This one allows you to search using natural language processing, like the way we speak. You can type in your question- “What is Antarctica like?” It often provides related topics as well.

7. Search Engines www.yahooligans.com
This site provides categories for your search topic to help get you started.
It also provides category matches with a description of the information you will find, but the descriptions are brief.

8. Search Engines www.kidsclick.org
This site offers a reading level to help you determine whether or not the text will be appropriate for you.
It provides detailed descriptions of the information you will find on each site.
Unfortunately, there are fewer hits for topics on this site.

9. Search Engines For older students and adults: www.google.com
This site uses text matching to match your search terms with over 8 billion websites.
It ranks and lists the websites by popularity (and therefore usefulness).
It offers spell check– “Did you mean…” and topics related to your search terms.

10. Search Engines Other search engines for adults include:
search.aol.com
Meta-search engines search other search engines for you:

11. Key Words
Do you think about which words you ought to use before beginning a search?
Some keywords are too broad such as, “Antarctica,” “volcano,” “animals”
Some keywords are too wordy such as, “types of animals who live in Antarctica,” “types of wrestling moves,” “What was Jim Carrey’s childhood like?”

12. “Topic + Focus” Use Topic + Focus
A “just right” key word search uses the topic + focus such as, “wrestling + techniques,” “Antarctica + vegetation,” “African American + “Nobel Prize” + literature,”
What if the researcher left out “literature” in the last example?
Use Topic + Focus
What is the history of lacrosse?
lacrosse
history

13. Evaluating the Search Engine Results
How do you choose a website from the list?
Do you just pick one at random?
Do you click on each of them in order until you find one that is useful?
Do you give up if the first one or two do not yields good results?
Instead, ask “Which website will match my informational needs?”
Read the descriptions underneath to determine usefulness and make a choice.
Be sure you have a clear topic + focus in mind first!