P.O. Box 5
Afton, NY 13730
607.639.8200

These tips are courtesy of
North High School Library
in Downers Grove, Illinois.

Search Techniques

By understanding how to perform sophisticated searches, your chances of finding what you want will be greatly increased. Most search engines allow you to define your search criteria in very specific ways, but not all function the same way. Take the time to learn two search engines well and you’ll be more successful!
 

Capital Sensitivity

If a search keyword is capitalized the search engine will return only documents containing the capitalized word.  Example: China vs. china (will include dishes)
 

Phrase Searching

When using search terms containing more than one word in a specific order, enclose the words in quotation marks. Results will contain all the words in that specific order. Example: "gun control"
 

Boolean Logic

AND ­ When looking for a document that should contain all your keywords use AND. Example: "Chicago Bulls" AND schedule.

OR ­ You want to broaden your search to find documents that contain either of the keywords. Example: children OR kids.

NEAR ­ More specific than AND. Ensures that the document contains both terms and that they are located near each other.

AND NOT ­ Used preceding a search term would eliminate documents which contain that term. Example: bears AND NOT Chicago.
 

Date Capability

Many search engines offer the ability to limit searches by web page creation dates. (This is not the historical time frame of an event). This is useful when searching for current event topics.
 

Specific Parts of the Document

Some search engines can limit searches to specific areas, the most common being: title and URL. Example: You are looking for information on Alternative Medicine and believe that there are probably whole web pages devoted to your subject which have the keywords in the titles, you could use the syntax: title: alternative AND medicine.
 

Specific Media

Hotbot, Lycos, and AltaVista allow you to search for specific media such as audio, images, and video.
 

Get to Know Your Favorite Engine in Depth

Each search engine is different. Decide on your favorite and learn its nuances in depth. Read the help and tip screens.
 

Wildcards/Truncation

Use a wildcard to find combinations of words or word fragments. Almost all of the engines use an asterisk. Example: dog* (dogs as well as dog); wom*n (both women and woman); nation* (nation, national, nationalized)
 

Try a Meta Search Engine

Meta engines like Dogpile search many search engines at one time. This can be a quick way to find some top sites on your topic.
 

Don’t Be Afraid of a Lot!

If you get 2 million hits, just check out the first 10 or 20. If you’re off base, re-work your search terms. If you’re still unsatisfied, try a different engine (or leave it and try a different time) Don’t get frustrated. This is fun!

If you’re having problems or have questions, please ask a librarian for help.