health in
| Using a Search Engine To Find Good Health Information• Look at the Help page. Search engines work differently; there should be a Help page to tell you how to use the search engine you are looking at. • Use your Key Concepts and Variations. Different websites may use different words or terms to talk about your subject. If you only use one word or phrase you will only get the results that contain that word or phrase. Some search engines will automatically search for related terms, but this does not guarantee that you are getting everything. • Use links and directories when you find them. You may be directed to something you wouldn’t have otherwise found. • Keep track of useful words and phrases that come up. Add them to you Key Concepts and Variations list, you may get your best results using terms you find this way. • Get familiar with “Advanced Searching”. Generally search engines (and many websites) will have an “advanced search” option that allows you to tell the search engine what you want more specifically. Different engines will have different options that will work in different ways, so you will have to play around to learn how best to make use of these features. • Avoid typos and incorrect spelling. Most of the time search engines are forgiving about spelling. However to ensure your best results it is a good idea to make sure that you haven’t misspelled anything, or transposed or inserted letters (heatlh instead of health, 20006 instead of 2006) etc. • Be as specific as possible. If you are looking for a fibromyalgia support group in Peterborough Ontario, search for “fibromyalgia support group Peterborough Ontario”, not “fibromyalgia”. This way you know right away if there is a page that has the exact information you are looking for, instead of looking for what you actually want hidden among thousands of pages that you don’t want. If you don’t find anything you can start cutting terms out until you do find something. • Keep track of what you have tried and what kind of success you had. This will prevent you from repeating the same thing over and over. It will also help you to figure out which strategies are working so you can concentrate on them, and abandon the unsuccessful ones. • Practice, Practice, Practice! The more you do it the better you will be. • Try Boolean Searching and Search Math. What on earth is Boolean Searching and Search Math? |
