For the Internet there are two basic search tools,
subject directories and search engines. A subject
directory such as Yahoo
is a list of links selected and organized by the owner
of the directory. Pages (links) are organized by topic.
A search engine such as
Google uses specialized software to search web pages
for relevant words or phrases. There are no selection
criteria for the links to be displayed in this kind of
search. In addition to subject directories and search
engines, there are a number of search sites that either
combine the two methods or use unique search procedures.
Ask Jeeves is an
example.
When should I use a search directory?
When you have a broad topic of idea to research
When you want to see a list of sites on your topic often recommended
and annotated by experts
When you want to retrieve a list of sites relevant to your topic, rather
than numerous individual pages
contained within these sites
When you want to search for the site title, annotation and (if available)
assigned keywords to retrieve
relevant material.
When you want to avoid low-content documents that often turn up on
search engines
When should I use a search engine?
When you have a narrow or obscure topic or idea to
research
When you are looking for a specific website
When you want to search the full text of millions of
pages
When you want to retrieve a large number of documents on
your topic
When you want to search for particular types of documents, file types,
source location, languages, date
last modified, etc.
When you want to take advantage of newer retrieval technologies such
as concept clustering, ranking by
popularity, link rating, etc.
General Tips
When using a search engine the words and phrases you use are very
important
The search will only turn up the words you ask for and they may have
nothing to do with your topic
Most search engines assume that space between your words means
AND and will search for all references to each word (for example, if you
type Civil War, the search will bring up all uses of the work "civil" and
"war")
If you wish to use a specific phrase such as Civil War, put quotation
marks around the phrase (e.g. "Civil War")
You may use Boolean logic (examples: "Civil War" and Gettysburg. "Civil
War" Not Gettysburg)
If you wish to find major pages devoted to a topic, you might wish to
use the following search engine technique
-- TITLE: "Civil War" 
