Narrowing a Web Search

1) NOTE: This was first written for a search engine called "dogpile" ( www.dogpile.com ). The better search engine is now google. The techniques shown here will also work with google. Let's say that your interested in studying cave men, specifically, the Neanderthal man and their religion. First let's tackle Neanderthals. So you go to www.google.com (a great search site) and type Neanderthal man into the search area and press fetch:

2) Reams of useless crap soil your computer screen with hardly any having anything to do with Neanderthal man. . .

3) So you either give up (not so good) or attempt to narrow your search by typing in the scientific name (Homo neanderthalensis):

4) Still, we're getting some odd stuff (including "Big Boy Productions", which may be a homosexual site). We still have to filter more out.

5) The potential problem with the previous request is that the search engines may be looking for the words Homo and neanderthalensis whether they occur together or alone. To force a search engine to look for both words, enclose them in parentheses and hit fetch.

     This results in a more limited search.

6) Now lets try the religion portion by typing religion into the search box:

7) This gives a HUGE list of religion sites, none of which have anything to do with Neanderthal man:

8) To find Neanderthal religion sites try the query this way (using AND to search for both):

Other useful qualifiers besides "AND" are "OR" and "NOT" "Homo neanderthalensis" NOT religion will filter out many of the creationist sites, for example. You can get as complicated as you like: "Homo neanderthalensis" OR "Homo erectus" AND music NOT religion is legal.

9) Now we have several possible links (Don't forget to visit Citing Internet Resources):  Also, if you need pictures for a PowerPoint presentation or your paper, you can search here for images using the same techniques. Other generally useful links are here. The World Wide Web has become your source for all sorts of pseudoscientific nonsense. Listen to the NPR commentary and keep this in mind for all web searches (~ 3 min; needs Real Audio; get it here).