World Wide Web

Use your favorite search engine to look for additional information on your topic. Be especially careful to evaluate sites for currency, authority and bias. See the next section on evaluating resources.

Try Google or Yahoo if you don't have a favorite. Below are tips for searching on the web.

How to Query Web Engines and Electronic Resources

Techniques vary, but overall, the following will get you started. Read Help sections for each resource for more exacting queries. If you don't like reading instruction, just try some of the following and see what works.

Enter a key word or words and press or click GO, SEARCH, START or whatever button is available that starts the search.

Key words tips:

• Try different words if at first unsuccessful.
• Try a phrase. Use quotes — single or double — around a phrase. If the search engine has indexed phrases, your results will be more relevant. If the search engine doesn't use phrases, it might ignore the quotes, or give you nothing. If nothing, try again without quotes.
• Limit or widen the search using qualifiers

Some search engines recognize AND, NOT, and OR qualifiers.

• AND means find articles where both these words are used.
  Example: I don't want everything on pets; I want to know about pets and fleas.
  Query: pets and flees
• NOT means find articles with the first word, but not the second
  Example: I want to know if states besides California have clean auto emissions laws.
  Query: clean auto emissions not California
• OR means find articles with either search term
  Example: I want information on a high protein diet, sometimes-called low carb diet.
  Query: high protein diet or low carb diet