T he Internet is a wonderful research tool, but it can be difficult and frustrating to use. Here’s how to find what you need without wasting time...

SELECTING A SEARCH ENGINE

There are dozens of search engines, and new ones pop up every month, each with a slightly different approach and purpose.

It’s difficult to single out one search engine as best... and even if I could, the information might be out of date a month from now. Here’s how to start...

Consult a search-engine review site. Search Engine Watch searchenginewatch.com and Search Engine Showdown www.notess.com/search offer some insight on the ever-changing world of search engines.

Find the search engine or directory site most appropriate for your search. Certain search engines and directories target a specific range of topics, which can be a big help for avoiding off-the-mark information. Worth checking...

GPO Access for government documents and information. http://gpo.lib.purdue.edu/

HealthWeb for health information. http://healthweb.org/

Northern Light is particularly strong for business information. www.northernlight.com

Consider a directory indexed by a real person. Most search engines use a computer to index pages on the Internet. The terms you input are simply matched against what is located, regardless of context. A few, including Yahoo! www.yahoo.com and Snap www.snap.com, are constructed by humans, so that users can move along topic branches to find what they need.

When other search engines turn up mostly unrelated items -- say, you want to know about Ford Mustangs, and your search engine finds horse sites -- these human-constructed directories can be particularly helpful.

Try more than one search engine. Few people realize that search engines don’t have full coverage. Even the largest search engines -- including Northern Light, AltaVista www.altavista.com and Fast Search www.alltheweb.com -- each cover less than one-third of the Web. Smaller search engines might include even less than 10%.

You might be surprised by how many new choices a second search through a different search engine turns up.

Don’t rely on “multiple search engines” -- such as C4 www.c4.com ... Dogpile www.dogpile.com... and MetaCrawler www.metacrawler.com. While these multiple search engines submit searches to a number of search engines in one swipe, they may fail to include the best one for your information needs... and they can be tricky to use.

SEARCH TRICKS

Consult each search engine’s “help,” “tips” or “info” section. Here are some tricks worth noting...

With most search engines, putting a phrase in quotation marks ensures that the search engine will find only sites that use the terms in that order. That’s helpful with phrases that are made up of common words, such as “air conditioners,” “Windows 98” or “Detroit Tigers.”

Most search engines allow the use of a specific symbol -- usually an asterisk (*) -- to act as a wild card. This is particularly helpful with uncertain word endings.

Example: Say you can’t remember if the Magellan Fund is offered by Fidelity Investments, Fidelity Investors or Fidelity Investing. Instead of guessing, input “Fidelity” and “Invest*”.

This trick won’t always work. For example, if you’re looking for information on cars, inputting “car*” will net sites on carbon, carburetors, Carnegie Mellon, the Carolinas and too many other things.

With most major search engines, plus and minus signs are powerful tools.

Insert a “+” between terms, and you’ll only get sites with both terms, not just one or the other. Insert a “–” and you’ll get sites with the first term but not those included after the “–”.

Example: If you’re looking for sites about apples, the fruit, try “apple–computer” to sort out most (although probably not all) Apple Computer sites.

Spelling counts. Internet retailer Amazon.com recently found that many customers were inputting “Pokeman” at their site and finding nothing. Customers were misspelling “Pokemon.”

Best solution: Keep a dictionary by your computer. It’s faster than failed searches. For product names and other phrases not found in dictionaries, try spelling variations if nothing turns up from a first attempt.

THE CREDIBILITY QUESTION

Information on the Internet is unfiltered, so accuracy is uneven. Common sense is the best guide to what is and isn’t reliable. But a few useful questions...

Are the site sponsor and its motives clear? If the site covers a volatile issue or a product evaluation, a reputable source should make these facts clear. If you have never heard of the organization or none is listed, look for other sources.

Is the site timely? If you’re looking for particularly timely facts, such as a stock price, extremely up-to-date data is required. If a source doesn’t say when the information was posted or how often it is updated, look elsewhere.

Does the site provide links to other resources? Does it include makers of products competing with the one recommended? A truly unbiased site is much more likely to do this.

Helpful: More details on this subject are available at www.widener.edu/. Click on libraries, then click on Evaluating Web Resources. This site is provided by librarians at Widener University.

ADDITIONAL SEARCH ADVICE

Use bookmarks liberally -- and downloads and printouts when appropriate. It’s easy to jump from one site to another, ignoring other potential avenues. Using a browser’s back arrow or saved history to return to promising sites can be helpful -- but not if you’ve followed many click-throughs during your search.

Best: “Bookmark” the search results or promising sites you want to return to before proceeding with your search. Or use a site like www.backflip.com... www.blink.com... or www.clickmarks.com. These sites will organize your bookmarks into a Yahoo-style search engine.

Take advantage of prescreened links and guidance. A number of libraries and library organizations offer links to sites that they have found particularly helpful. My favorites...

The Internet Public Library www.ipl.org.

Librarians’ Index to the Internet http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/internetindex/.

Saint Joseph County Public Library Hotlist http://www.sjcpl.lib.in.us/homepage/Reference/Internet Links.html.

A search engine may be the wrong tool. Chances are the information you need is on the Web, but that doesn’t mean a search engine is the right way to find it. Digging up specific facts can be a time-consuming process on the Internet -- perhaps even a waste of time. There are still plenty of times when other methods are faster and more reliable.

Helpful: Some encyclopedia publishers now make a large portion of their content available for free on the Web, including the well-regarded Encyclopedia Britannica www.britannica.com. This site also includes a dictionary and links to related Web sites. Rather than using a search engine, consider heading there for certain specific information.

Additional source: Infomine Scholarly Internet Resource Collections gives links to almanacs, associations, etc. http://brimstone.ucr.edu/reference.

Example: If you need to know the chief export of Azerbaijan, the quickest way likely is still to consult an encyclopedia or an almanac... or call your local library’s reference desk.