TIPS FOR EFFICIENT WEB SEARCHING Here are a few tips for making your search engine use more efficient. These tips should work for various search engines such as AOL, Ask, Google, MSN, and Yahoo!. If you follow these tips, you should see improvement in your search efficiency. Use quotes around terms to specify that you want certain words to be right next to each other. This is helpful when you are looking for a specific phrase. Even if you are not looking for a specific phrase, some things you look for may be easier to find if you specify a few words to be right next to each other. Example: You are looking for information on how to search the Web. Compare "how to search online" (with quotes!) to the results of a query on the same words without the quotes: how to search online Use the minus or negative sign to indicate words you do not want included in the results. This can be helpful if you realize that you are being inundated by a certain set of results due to one particular term related to your search terms, but not to what you are looking for. Example: You are looking for information about a famous sociologist whose last name you know is DiMaggio, but whose first name you do not know. Compare dimaggio -joe (using a minus sign to suppress a term!) to the results of a query without specifying the exclusion of a term: dimaggio Of course, a viable alternative in this case would be to type in dimaggio sociology, which would also get you closer to the target. This brings us to our next tip. Always be sure to specify what you are looking for. Do not just enter one term, enter several terms that refer to the different ideas in your query. For example, if you are looking for information about the astrological sign cancer, it is not enough to do a search for cancer, because most of the results will have to do with the medical meaning for cancer. Rather, if you add information about astrology or even just add the word sign, you will get more relevant results. Compare cancer sign (specifying information!) to the results of a query without specifying details about your query: cancer You can specify the site on which you want to conduct a search. You can do so at any level of the site address. You can specify CNN by typing site:cnn.com or you can specify Web sites of educational institutions by typing: site:.edu Example: You are looking for the CNN show The Flip Side Compare "flip side" site:cnn.com (specify the site where you want to see results!) to the results of a query without specifying site: "flip side" It is possible to combine the above techniques. You can exclude a certain site from the results by typing in a site address with a minus sign right in front of it. Let's say you want to see schools named after Woodrow Wilson, but you don't want to see the one at Princeton. Compare woodrow wilson school -site:princeton.edu to the results of a query without specifying the exclusion of the princeton.edu site woodrow wilson school Sometimes it is worth guessing the URL (Uniform Resource Locator) or Web address of a site. You can go to the location bar (the bar usually located above the screen in which you are viewing a Web page and is sometimes labelled Address) and type in a domain name. This name cannot contain spaces and has to have periods to separate its sections. In the least, it has to have two sections: cnn.com. Of course, you could also say www.cnn.com. Guesses don't always work, but in some cases they do. Be sure to use .edu at the end (instead of .com) if you are looking for an educational site, .gov for a government site, and .org for some non profits.