Are you tired of wading through
thousands of hits every time you search the Net? Then try the following tips.
The search features below are common to most search engines. Their names
and the way the features are used vary. The names used here apply to
AltaVista.
1. Read and use Help information.
This part of the search engine will describe search features and how to apply
them.
2. Use case sensitivity. In many search
engines, capitalizing the first letter of proper nouns such as names will affect
your search results.
lugnuts retrieves documents about automotive
parts
Lugnuts retrieves documents about Lansing's baseball team
3. Use phrase searching. Put phrases in double
quotes.
"Lansing Lugnuts" retrieves documents
including this phrase
Lansing Lugnuts retrieves documents with the word Lansing or the
word Lugnuts
4. Use wildcards. Add an asterisk (*) after at
least the first three letters of a word to retrieve sites including any words
beginning with those letters. Use a wildcard to retrieve both singular and
plural forms of a word or when you aren't sure how to spell a word.
Mackina* retrieves both Mackinac and
Mackinaw
5. Use "include" and "exclude" commands. A plus
(+) sign in front of a word indicates the word must appear in all sites
retrieved. A minus (-) sign indicates the word must not appear in any site.
+Mackinac +Mackinaw retrieves documents
including both words
+Mackinac -Mackinaw retrieves documents including Mackinac but not
Mackinaw
6. Use logical (Boolean) operators. In
AltaVista, use these in Advanced Searches. Logical operators are certain words
that can be used to indicate inclusion, exclusion, or word proximity. Some
common logical operators are OR, AND, and AND NOT.
cats or dogs retrieves documents containing
the word cats or the word dogs
cats and dogs retrieves documents containing both words
pets and not dogs retrieves documents including the word pets but not
the word dogs
7. Limit by domain. In an Internet address or
URL, the domain is an indication of the type of website. Some common domains are
edu (education), com (commercial), gov (government) and org (nonprofit
organization).
domain:edu +cancer retrieves cancer
information provided by educational institutions
*Call the reference desk at (517) 483-1615 if you need
more help.
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