Modifying Your Search

There are a number of ways you can alter your search in an effort to get better or more precise results. Here are some general guidelines:

If you found too much, use

• field searching, such as specifying that your search terms must appear in a title or url.
• the "AND" operator or + plus sign to include another keyword to your search (e.g. Shakespeare and criticism).
• quotation marks around phrases ("heart disease"); otherwise, the computer may be looking for either heart or disease.

If you found too little,

• don't specify that a search word must appear in a title, url, etc.
• use the "OR" operator or truncation (*) to give the computer more synonyms to find.
• use lowercase. If you use uppercase, most search engines will only retrieve words with capital letters. Lowercase searches usually retrieve both upper and lowercase variations.

If many of your results seem irrelevant,

• try the same search in a subject directory
• use the "NOT" operator or - minus sign to filter out information you don't want (e.g. "eastern religions" not Buddhism)
• insert any technical or scientific terms that may apply (plants and photosynthesis)

Special Features Offered by Search Engines

Increasingly, search engines are providing helpful features that give you additional options for modifying your research. Some allow you to limit by date (i.e. date when the item was entered into the search engine's database). Others have a "refine" or "search within the results set" feature which allows you to search for a new keyword just within the results list you have already created. Another approach is to try to organize your results list into categories, such as types of sites or concepts.

We have covered only some of the information available on using directories and search engines. The next section will suggest additional resources on these essential tools.