Search Tips

Pick your search site carefully:

General topics or concepts (such as the Renaissance or Westward Expansion) - use Yahoo
Specific topics or names (such as Benjamin Franklin or Opium War) - use HotBot or AltaVista
Questions in plain English can be answered best by Infoseek

Use a specialized search service:

See the specific history directories on the Search Resources page or bookmark the specialized indices in areas of your interest.

Use quotes for phrases or proper names:

Several search engines allow the user to search for an exact name or a phrase, like Benjamin Franklin. With AltaVista enclose the terms in quotation marks. That way only pages where the words appear next to each other in the text will be found--you won't be presented with pages that mention Benjamin Spock and Aretha Franklin. With HotBot choose the "exact phrase" rather than "all the words."

Check your spelling:

If you are looking for the warrior princess of TV fame, don't search for "Zena," but for "Xena."

To cap or not to cap?

If you enter a keyword in lowercase, most search engines will find both upper- and lowercase matches. Use capital letters if you want an exact case match.

Stay away from common words:

If you use a word that is very common, such as shopping, chances are you'll get an overwhelmingly long list of results. Try to pick less common words or use synonyms to narrow your search.

Use more than one word:

Another way to narrow your search is to use more than one word. For example, if you're looking for information about traveling in Mexico, try entering the phrase travel AND Mexico. AND is what's known as a Boolean operator--it finds documents that contain both of the words you enter (although they don't have to appear next to each other, as they do when you use quotation marks). Most search engines support Boolean operators, though some use the plus symbol (+) instead of the AND command.

Exclude words you don't want:

You can also use the NOT command (or the minus symbol) to exclude words from a search query. Searching for "racing AND bike NOT car," is more likely to eliminate pages about car racing.

Search for variations:

Some search engines support the asterisk (*) symbol (known as the wildcard) to find variations on a word. For example, if you enter cook*, you'll find pages about cooking, cooks, cookbooks, and so on--and probably cookies, too.

Read the help section:

Most sites provide tips on using their particular service--although almost all of these primers could use a good editor and more details. Still, it's worth reading these sections for sites you use often.

Return to the Search Resources.

Return to the Social Studies Home Page.

Last updated on February 15, 1997
Maintained by John L. Day

<jday@umd5.umd.edu>