ENGL 102
Writing and Research
Home Page >>Research Resources >> Searching the Web

Unlike a Card Catalog or Periodical Database, when you search the Web, the entire text of the entire web page is searched for matches. Thus it's not as important to have the specific, but use of the proper terms will tend to bring you better results for a college and professional level research project. When you are searching the web, you want to use many different, but related topics, or add extra terms that will help narrow the search.

• For example, if you are researching Columbine, but were mainly interested in causes, you would put -- Columbine causes -- in the search box.
• If you were interested in articles that linked Columbine to video games like Doom, you'd put -- Columbine videogames -- or -- Columbine Doom -- in the search box.
• If you wanted to find sources that specifically talked about whether videogames like Doom caused Columbine, you should try -- Columbine cause Doom -- or -- Columbine cause videogames -- in the search box.

Not all of these searches will be helpful, and not all of them will work. But since searches on the web are easy and take little time, there's no reason not to experiment and see what you come up with.

Remember that when you are searching for a phrase like "air pollution," put it in quotation marks, or you will get results for every page that has "air" OR "pollution" in it, not just pages about "air pollution."

Google is currently the best search engine available, and one of the simplest to use, especially for multiple word searches. The results that you get from Google will almost always be the best results you get from the web. I have linked here to the advanced search page, which many users don't even know exists. It will allow you to control your results so as to improve your research even further.

AlltheWeb is giving Google a run for its money in terms of being the most comprehensive search engine. Much of what you get here will be junk, but it almost always turns up different results than the other search engines.

Teoma is a brand new search engine that combines Google and AlltheWeb's large database with Northernlight’s folders to organize the information. This search engine is still in the early stages of development, but some people already swear by it. Give it a try and see what you find.

Mamma is a meta-search engine that takes your search request, submits it to multiple search engines, and then compiles the results into a single list. I'm not especially fond of the results, but many students really like this "all-in-one" approach.

Yahoo is not really a search engine in that it doesn't list the whole WWW, just what its editors have chosen. Theoretically, this should get you a better selection, but realistically, Yahoo is focused primarily on selling ads and shopping, so the results tend to be skewed to either flashy sites or sites that have paid for their placement. Yahoo is not really an appropriate place to research for an academic paper.

Dmoz, or the Open Directory, is set up like Yahoo, but is maintained by editors who are experts in the field that they are editing. The results will often be much more appropriate for a research paper, but since the editors are volunteers, some areas are more up-to-date than others.

About has its ups and downs but is similar to the Open Directory in that it has sections edited by experts. In addition, each About directory clearly identifies which links were paid for, and has links to pages where their experts discuss the websites and give lists of links that they have personally chosen.