Introduction

Having trouble coming up with just the right science fair project? Learn WWW search strategies to locate science fair project sites. Along the way we will share Internet tips and tricks plus talk about how to evaluate all those great sites you find.

Objectives:

1. Learn when to use an Internet subject directory rather than a Search Engine.
2. Develop effective Internet search skills.
3. Develop skills to critically evaluate Internet sites.
   

Search Engines vs. Subject Directories

Search engine = database compiled by a computer program (robot, spider) that visits millions of web pages and brings back selected information to its computer. Creates a database that you search when you enter keywords or phrases. Results from an individual search engine depend on what the robot was programmed to retrieve.

Examples:

• Alta Vista (http://www.altavista.com/)
• Ask.com (http://www.ask.com/)
• Google (http://www.google.com/)
• Lycos (http://www.lycos.com/)
• MSN Search (http://search.msn.com/)

Metasearch engines (search several search engines at once)

Examples:

• Ixquick (http://www.ixquick.com)
• MetaCrawler (http://www.metacrawler.com/)
• Search.com (http://www.search.com/)

Subject Directories = "Table of Contents for the Internet". Most Subject Directories are compiled by experts in various fields. Subject directories usually have a smaller number of sites. They are useful for browsing broad questions like I need to find a science fair topic….

Examples:

• Google Directory (http://directory.google.com/). Searches Open Directory with Google's search technology.
  Check categories:
  Kids and Teens > School Time > Science > Science Fairs
  Kids and Teens > School Time > Science > Experiments
• Librarians' Internet Index (http://lii.org/). Sites selected and evaluated by librarians. See Science > Science Projects.
• Open Directory (http://dmoz.org/). Largest human-edited directory of the web.

Questions to ask yourself about Subject Directories:

1. What makes a good subject directory? (What is important to you?)
2. Who is responsible?
3. How are sites selected for inclusion?
4. Is it searchable?
5. Can you browse?

See also National Science Digital Library (http://nsdl.org/). Not really a search engine or subject directory, but definitely worth checking out! Search for "science fair" in quotes.

Evaluating Web Sites

How can you trust what you see on the Internet? Anyone can and will post information on the Internet, so it is important to evaluate the quality of the information you find. Librarians agree that these are questions you should always ask about a web site:

1. WHAT is the site about? Does it have the kind of information you need?
2. WHO created the page/site?
3. WHERE is the information coming from?
4. WHY is this site on the web and how does it affect the information?
5. WHEN was the page or information created? Is the date important for the timeliness of the content?

See Evaluating Sources at http://www.library.wisc.edu/research-tips/learn-about/evaluate-sources.html

Search Engine Tips

(paraphrased from Barbara Lazewski, WWW Search Strategies http://steenbock.library.wisc.edu/instruct/wwwstrategies.htm#Tips

• Learn one or two search engines well. Help/tips screens are really helpful!
• Use lower case for most searches.
• Put the most unique word first unless using a natural language search engine.
• Try phrase searching with double quote marks to narrow a search to adjacent words.
• Include or exclude words with + - symbols in simple/default searches.
• Use the advanced/custom/power search options for more search control.
• Many support the Boolean Operators AND/OR/NOT that should be capitalized.
• Use field searching to limit your search to a particular field of a web page, such as the URL or title.
• If permitted, use truncation, a wild card symbol (often a *) at the end of a root word, to retrieve variants of the term.
• Try different keyword combinations if you are disappointed with your search results