News and Views

Internet Technology

 TIPS FOR EFFICIENT SEARCHING

Pauline Wallin, Ph.D.

Independent Practice
Camp Hill, PA 17011
Internet Technology Table of Contents
BROWSER TIPS
When typing in your search term, it's not usually necessary to type capital letters for names. Most search engines are not case-sensitive.
Many URLs are case-sensitive. Therefore, when entering a URL in the address box of your browser, make sure you type in capital letters if they are part of the URL.
When searching, there is no room for spelling errors. Search engines are essentially robots that look for exactly what you type in the search box.
Use Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) to narrow your search. For example, psychoanalysis not freud will yield pages and documents that deal with psychoanalysis, but screen out all those that mention Freud. An often overlooked Boolean operator is NEAR, which is almost like AND, but more restrictive. For example, if your search term is concussion AND memory the search engine will retrieve all pages that contain both those terms. However, if you type in concussion NEAR memory the search engine will retrieve only those documents that contain those two words within a specified proximity (e.g. in AltaVista's power search mode, there must be no more than 10 words between your two search terms.) If you are getting too many hits with AND, try NEAR. However, only a handful of search engines include this Boolean operator. Check in the "help" section of the search engine, where you will find more tips for effective searching. Some search engines use the mathematical symbols + and - instead of AND and NOT.
Be as specific as possible in your search. This will reduce the number of irrelevant hits. For example, if you are looking for outcome studies of depression treated with medication, your search terms should include "depression and medication and outcome." If you enter only "depression" into the search box, you will be flooded with options, most of them irrelevant to your search.
Capitalize proper nouns. (This is useful only in search engines where case-sensitivity is recognized.) For example, if you're searching for information on Pick's disease, you will get more relevant hits if you capitalize the first letter. Otherwise, you could get thousands of hits such as "Ned's baseball hero picks."
Use quotes around search terms of two or more words. For example, if you enter the words custody evaluation without quotes enclosing it, the search engine will look for pages and documents containing the words custody and evaluation, but not necessarily occurring contiguously. This will result in many irrelevant hits. To avoid this, put quotes around the term: "custody evaluation". The search engine will look for documents containing these words only when they occur as a phrase. Some search engines (e.g. HotBot) don't require quotation marks. They have check boxes where you specify whether you want to search for "exact phrase" or "all the words."
If you don't find what you're looking for, try an alternative search term. For example, if you don't get good hits from the search word "epilepsy," try "seizures." Also, try a different search engine, since even the major ones (Yahoo, Excite, Hotbot, etc.) are capable of indexing at best only about one third of the web.
All search engines have a Help button to guide you through the search process. Some also have a "power search" button that allows you to refine your search options.
Keep more than one window open in your browser. This is especially useful when you want to visit more than one link from a web page. When you click on the first link, open this link in a new window. While the new window is loading, you can return to the original page and open the next link in a new window, etc. While loading one page you can read another, thus saving time. To access this feature from Navigator or Internet Explorer, click on the link using the right mouse button. (In Explorer for Windows you can just Shift-Click.) For Macintosh systems, hold down the mouse as you click; a dropdown menu will appear, including an option to "open in new window." An alternative for Macintosh is to use the "Page Hold" feature of Internet Explorer 5. This is a side bar frame that lists all the links on the current page. The main browser window displays the pages as you click on each link. Note: This page has been set to automatically open each link in a new window, so you won't need to use this tip here.
When you have several windows open in your browser, you can access them from the task bar at the bottom of the screen, which displays the names of all open windows (not available on Macintosh operating systems.) Another option is to click on the "Windows" menu on the toolbar at the top of the browser. This will display a dropdown menu showing all open windows. You can also change the size of the front window to make it a little smaller than the one behind it. This makes both windows accessible with a click of the mouse on the edge of the window.
To quickly find a specific word or phrase in a text-heavy web page, use the "Find" command from the Edit menu of your browser.
If you find that on some frequently used Web sites you routinely go to a secondary page within that Web site (e.g. in HotBot you always go to the "Power Search" page,) you can create a shortcut to that page on your browser bar, so that you don't have to navigate through the main window of the Web site . Next time you click to the page you desire, create a link to that page on the Personal Toolbar of Netscape or the Links Toolbar of Internet Explorer. To accomplish this in Netscape, drag the little green bookmark symbol from beside the address window to the Toolbar. In Explorer drag the address itself from the address window to the Links bar. Now when you want to visit the embedded web page, you have an instant link which is handier than going through the Bookmarks or Favorites.
To quickly find Web sites that are similar to the one in your current browser window, click on the What's related (in Netscape) or the Related (in Internet Explorer. The dropdown menu will display a list of similar web sites.
If you happen to follow a link to a web site, and you get a "Not found" message, the page may have moved or may no longer exist. Try deleting the last suffix off the URL in the address window and press return. (If this doesn't work, try deleting successive suffixes.) This may take you to a preceding page in the web site, which may point you to the information you need.
KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS
While the mouse has its advantages, sometimes it's easier to type commands from the keyboard, particularly when your fingers are already doing some other typing. Keyboard equivalents of mouse clicks can be viewed when you click on the dropdown menus at the top of your browser window. For example, clicking on File in the upper left corner displays a drop-down menu. Many of the clickable options also show the keyboard equivalent. For example, in both Navigator and Internet Explorer, "Ctrl + N" refers to the combination of the Control key and the letter N, which, when pressed simultaneously, will open a new browser window. Next time you want to open a new window, it will be faster to press Ctrl N (or in Macintosh, Command + N) than to move your mouse up to the top of your browser. Here are some of the common keyboard shortcuts. For a complete list, see "Contents and Index" within the Help menu of Explorer or "Reference library" within the Help menu of Navigator.
WINDOWS
MACINTOSH
ACTION
Ctrl + N
Cmd + N
 Open a new browser window
Ctrl + W
Cmd + W
 Close the current browser window
Ctrl + P
Cmd + P
 Print the current page
Ctrl + S
Cmd + S
 Save the current page
Ctrl + F
Cmd + F
 Open the "find" dialog box to search for specific terms on the current page
Page Up
Page Up
 Move the page up one screen at a time
Page Down or Space Bar
Page Down or Space Bar
 Move the page down done screen at a time
Tab
Tab
 Move from one element to the next on a web page (e.g. when filling out forms)
Ctrl + D
Cmd + D
 Add current page to Favorites or Bookmarks
Esc
Esc
 Stop a page from loading
Ctrl + H
Cmd + H
 Display history of web pages visited (Exception: Netscape for Mac, this displays history for current session only
Ctrl + T
Cmd + T
 Get new mail messages (Netscape only)
Ctrl + Enter
 - Add "www. <http://www./> " to the beginning and ".com" to the end of text typed in the address bar (Internet Explorer for Windows only)
Ctrl + Right Arrow
 - In an empty address box, insert "http://www. <http://www./> " (Internet Explorer for Macintosh only)
SAVING BOOKMARKS AND WEB PAGES
For frequently used pages, save them as "Bookmarks" (in Netscape) or "Favorites" (in Internet Explorer and AOL.) The URL is saved on your computer. Next time you want to go to that page, just click on the Bookmark or Favorites menu, and select that page. This saves you the work of typing in the URL.
You can also bookmark a page of "hits" from your latest search. When you later return to that URL, the page will be updated, including new links from the previous search.
Consider saving bookmarks on the Web. There are many free web sites that allow you to store and organize your bookmarks. Examples include: <Clickmarks>, <Powermarks> and · <Backflip>. Some portal sites such as · Yahoo and · Excite also offer bookmark management. If you use <Yahoo> or <Excite> as your main portal, you can customize the site to display your bookmarks along with news, weather, stock quotes and other information.
The advantage to saving bookmarks on the web rather than on your computer, is that they are available from any computer with internet connection. The disadvantage is that unless you have cable or DSL connection, if you want to sort or organize your bookmarks, it is a much slower process than if they are located on your own computer. Every time you want to move a bookmark or expand a folder of bookmarks you must wait for the change to appear in a new browser page.
Organize your bookmarks into categories or folders. This is especially important when you've accumulated dozens or hundreds of bookmarks. If you have folders designated as "Merchants," "Mental health," "Software downloads," etc., you can store related URLs in each folder. For example, under "Merchants" you can include book stores, office supply companies and your favorite discount shopping services. Under "Mental health" you can store mental health sites and consumer reference sites.
Forgot to bookmark a page and now you want to go back there, but can't remember the URL? Your surfing has been tracked by your browser. To access the history of pages visited, click the "History" button on the toolbar in Internet Explorer for Windows or the "Go" menu of Internet Explorer for Mac. In Netscape for Windows and Macintosh, click on the "Communicator" menu item, and from the drop-down menu select "Tools" and then "History." Alternatively, pressing the Control key (Command key in Mac) and the letter H at the same time, automatically opens the history of sites visited. This is one area where Netscape for Macintosh is lacking: for some reason, this program displays only the history of pages visited in the current session. Nevertheless, you can get a more long-term history by typing: "about:global" (without the quotation marks) in the Address window of Netscape. The history of sites visited will be displayed in the browser window.
You can save entire web pages on your computer's hard drive for later viewing offline: Under the File menu in the top left corner, select "save as". You can then save the page in any location in your computer. If you save many web pages, it's best to use a filing utility such as · <Surfsaver> and <Webforia>. These provide tools for organizing and searching for specific content among your saved pages.
HARDWARE TIPS
If your internet connection seems unusually slow, there may be interference on the line. Try unplugging phones, fax machines and any other communication devices from your modem line. Believe it or not, even unused devices can interfere with transmission.
If there is a long delay when web pages are loading, it may be that the site is busy, or that there is a lot of traffic through the major Internet computers. For faster searching and downloading, log on early morning or late at night. Or you can disable images and graphics. To do so, click on "Preferences" under the Edit menu of Netscape or "Internet Options" under the Tools menu of Explorer, and look for the menu item to disable pictures.
If you must download a program during prime time hours, try downloading from one of the "mirror sites" at different locations around the world. It will probably download faster. For example, if at 6:00 p.m. you want to upgrade your browser or download Microsoft files, choose a location in Asia, where it is the middle of the night.
PSYCHOLOGICAL TIPS
When time is limited, resist the temptation to follow links that are not directly relevant to your search. If you're afraid that you'll miss something, save the pages as bookmarks or as a file on your computer.
If your search seems fruitless, take a break. You can also request help from colleagues. If you participate in professional email lists or other professional online groups, post a message with your request. Chances are that one of your colleagues may be able to point you to exactly to what you need.
Don't hesitate to request the help of the librarian at your school or public library. Librarians are trained to find information, and most welcome a challenge.
When time is not of the essence, browse freely. Compare searches across different search engines. Explore all the drop-down menus in your browser. You will gradually become more and more acquainted with what's available on the Web, so that when it's time for creative searching, you'll be able to draw on your experience.
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