The wurster, the better

Choose a topic that interests you, or one from the list below. Use one or more tools of each type discussed above to search for information about your topic. Try to incorporate some or all of the following into your searches:

o Experiment with both simple and advanced interfaces
o Read the search tool’s documentation for instructions on how to search
o Use Boolean logic, proximity operators, wildcard characters and phrase searching
o Use one or more of the search tips discussed above
o Where applicable, use a search engine’s “more like this” feature to generate new searches
o Try different methods of displaying results, including sorting where applicable

Suggested topics:

1. What is the relationship between Mad Cow Disease and Creutzfeldt-Jakob Syndrome?
2. Is it possible to infect your computer’s hard drive with a virus by running programs over the Internet that use the Java programming language?
3. Is there any information on the Internet on Canadian microbreweries, brew pubs, or brew on premises shops?
4. I am hoping to see the movie The Sweet Hereafter. I would like to find reviews of the movie, any information about the novel on which it was based, and biographical information about the movie’s director, Atom Egoyan.

Links to search tools:

1. SEARCH ENGINES

AltaVista
Excite
alltheweb
Google
HotBot

2. MULTI-THREADED SEARCH ENGINES

Dogpile
Ixquick
Metacrawler
ProFusion
SurfWax

3. SUBJECT DIRECTORIES

LookSmart
Open Directory
Yahoo

4. CLEARINGHOUSES

Argus Clearinghouse
About.com
WWW Virtual Library

(a) Browse the Yahoo subject categories (do not use the search function) to find information about the topic you researched in Exercise 1. Assuming you were able to find some relevant information (it is possible that you will not), consider the following points:
o Which of the two methods – search engines or subject directories – do you consider was more successful or more appropriate? Why?
o What are the advantages and disadvantages of each method?

(b) Use Yahoo’s search form to search for information on the same topic as you did in (a).

o Which method of searching Yahoo was more successful? Why?
o How does searching Yahoo differ from searching a large search engine database?

(c) Browse and/or search a clearinghouse of specialized subject directories to see if there is a subject directory relevant to your topic. If so, peruse it to see if it would be useful for finding information on your topic.

Links to clearinghouses:

Argus Clearinghouse
About.com
WWW Virtual Library

Use a multi-threaded search engine to search for information about the topic you researched in Exercise 1. Compare your results with those you retrieved with an individual search engine. Also consider the same points as you did above.

Links to multi-threaded search engines:

Dogpile
Ixquick
Metacrawler
SurfWax

Select one topic from the list below. Use at least two different search engines to search for information about your topic. Compare the results you retrieve from each. When comparing your results, consider the following points, among others:

o How easy or difficult was it to figure out how to search?
o Was there adequate documentation to help you formulate your search?
o How many results did you retrieve?
o What proportion of the results was relevant to your perceived information requirements?
o How current were the results?
o Was the amount of detail displayed with the results adequate?
o Was the order in which the results were displayed evident and/or logical?
o What other features contribute to (or detract from) the search engine’s utility?

Suggested topics for searching:

Internet 2
Mad Cow Disease
The Beat Generation
Tupac Amaru
Microbreweries
Best price on a book, e.g. “1776″
Rates and availability for a weekend in the Poconos
What country originally settled the colony of North Carolina?

Links to search engines:

AltaVista
Excite
alltheweb
Google
HotBot

Here are some of the things we hope to do:

1. We will visit my web site at www.jwurster.us. We will look at the Teaching area and the individual page on the Internet class. The reference links there are great resources for the students to use when the class is over next week.
2. How to get to a web site. Use the “address bar” in which to enter the web address, not the Search dialog box that you may see on a web site such as Yahoo.
3. What is on a “web page”? Look around it. There is more that is seen on the screen. You might need to scroll down to view more.
4. How do you print a web page? Print button just prints the entire page and doesn’t give you any options. Or use File-Print which then gives you several options with respect to printing.
5.What if you only want to print part of it?
• use the Print dialog by pressing CTRL-P instead of the Print button
• copy certain things on a web page and print just that selection
• copy and past pieces of information from different parts of a web page or from several web pages into Word – then print from Word

6. How to recognize how large a web page is by looking at the size of the “vertical slider”. The larger the slider, the smaller the web page. The smaller the slider, the larger the page.
7. Can you tell how many pages will print when you print an entire web page? No. That is why it is important to realize what will print when you click on the Print button. Maybe you don’t want all of this.

In addition, I will ask each student to tell me something they want to do on the Internet. We will use this is in our next class. Some questions from the past are:

1. How would I find the best price for the book “1776″?
2. How would I find rates and availability for going to the Poconos on a weekend?
3. My grand-daughter has a school project and needs to find out about the country who originally settled North Carolina. How do I find this information?