Addison Trail Student Information Center - Information Literacy

STUDY

Keyword Activity

As you know, there are millions of sites on the World Wide Web.  With a click of the mouse, a search engine sorts through the holdings and lists the sites it thinks you want.  What it brings to you depends on the commands you use.

More Words bring Better Results
Single words bring results, but who has time to read through hundreds of sites? 
Refining your search, or adding other words bring fewer results that are more specific to your needs. 
Adding more words to your search bring fewer results. 
See how it works. 
(Check the help screen of your of your search engine to see if you need "quotes" or (   )  around your words.)

Which search engine are you using?______________.  Consider using and comparing results with different search engines.

Now, let's say your instructor tells you to find out whether the element mercury is toxic. 
 
1.  Type in mercury and hit the enter key.
     How many web pages were retrieved?
     Look at the descriptions and determine what the articles are about?  Do they address your question?

2.  Now add another word.  Type in mercury element.
     How many Web pages were retrieved?
     Look over the first few sites.  What are they about?

3.  Now add another word.  Type in mercury element toxic.
     How many Web How many Web pages were retrieved?
     Look over the first few sites.  What are they about?

Compare the number of web pages retrieved for the three searches. 
What do you conclude from this exercise?