How to Find Information on the World Wide Web
by Lorrie Faith Cranor
It's easy to find information about something on the WWW.
However finding the specific information that you are looking for
can sometimes be a challenge. Here are some tips to help you
find information more quickly.
What are you really looking for?
Before you begin your search, think about the information you are looking
for. Think about what key words describe it and the types of places the
information might be found. This is often quite difficult for a simple
reason: If you already knew a lot about the information you were searching
for, you probably wouldn't need to do the search. But do the best you
can. It's not much different than using a newsper morgue or databases
like Lexis-Nexis.
Try using a list of links
If you can classify the information you are seeking under a broad
category such as entertainment, government, or sports, a list of links may
prove useful to you.
St. Louis SPJ's
Online Resources for Journalists (http://www.ccrc.wustl.edu/spj/resources.html)
is a good place to start your
search. This page is used by journalists from around the world to
find the information they need quickly. Other good lists of links include
Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.com), a
searchable list of links;
and The WWW
Virtual Library
(http://www.w3.org/hypertext/DataSources/bySubject/Overview.html).
Try using a search engine
There are a number of search engines that allow you to perform
full text, key word, title, and address searches of the Web.
Some of these search engines offer reasonably comprehensive catalogs
of the Web. However, using them to find what you want can be tricky.
When using a large search engine, start by being as specific as
you can (for example search for a person's first name, middle initial,
last name, and employer). If that search does not turn up what you are looking
for, try a more general search (for example search for the last name
only). However, if you get too general you are likely to get several
thousand matches to your search query.
Some general search engines you might want to try include:
Explore!
Because of the overall lack of organization of the WWW, sometimes the
best way to find things is to explore (but not on deadline). If a search
doesn't turn up the information you were searching for, browse through the
information it does turn up, and see if you find anything interesting.
Use your bookmarks to remember interesting places
that you might want to go back to.
Last update 24 February 1996
http://www.ccrc.wustl.edu/spj/surf/finding_info.html
Prepared by Lorrie Faith Cranor (lorracks@cs.wustl.edu) and
Staci D. Kramer (sdk@cris.com)