Irene's Report 2:
Web Search Engines and Me

2. Prior Generational Reports on Search Engines:
Generation 4, Report 3

>Ryan Mitsui

Ryan describe a search engine as an online librarian who tells you where the information is and not only that, it will retrieve the information for you with just a click of a button. He said that to use search engine, one does not have to have computer knowledge because it is made to be self explanatory which means user friendly. He used three different types of search engines, they were Infoseek, Excite, and Magellan. He found out that different seach engine have different ways of catagorizing informations. Some are very helpful and some are not, it all depends on the user to decide. In the beginning, one of his problem was that there were many hits with irrelevant information on his topics. To correct this problem, he used Boolean constrictor to minimize his search. He can use the Boolean constrictor to narrow down his topic by only finding sites with the exact words he type in by just adding in "and" or "+ (plus)". He also learned to use a"- (minus)" to leave out certain words that will exclude certain topics. For instant, typing in free diving -sky -scuba -pool -olympic will narrow your search down to free diving except for sky diving, scuba diving, pool diving or olympic diving. Out of all the search engines he used, he like Excite the best.

In the beginning, I didn't know how to use Boolean constrictor to narrow down my topics. Just like Ryan, I found out that, many hits on a topic does not mean that they were relevant to what I am looking for. They may be far from what I was looking for. It gets frustrating if I can't find what I want because I was not specific enough. I found out later on that on certain search engine, if I just type in the words love relationship, it would automatically search for love or relationship. That was why, I was having so many hits with little result of what I want. That was why I learned to put an and to narrow down to the specific. In the light of my experiences with search engines, it's very important to add Boolean constrictor to narrow down to specific. And if you don't want to waste time with unnecessary work, be as specific as you can be. The computer is just following the user's command.

Shane Cobb-Adams

the only problem though is that the search engine, like the dog, is only as good as his master has taught him to be.

HELP file or FAQ file to find out more about each engines specific abilities and forms of narrowing your search down.

I did not use Magellan so, I did not try to use the Boolean constrictor + (plus). Although I found out the Boolean and works the same way. Sometimes my problem would be getting down to the specific because I don't really know what I want, so a lot of my topics are more general. Therefore, many times my hits are really large. When I scroll down the hits and most of the topics does not interest me, I would add Boolean to see if my searches would change. Sometimes, it does and it's usually when I added the Boolean and. By doing this, it usually lessen the amount of hits and it's easier to search for something interesting. Therefore, I found out that using Boolean does help a lot in constricting the hits to be more specific. Shane suggested that one should read about tips on how to use the Boolean constrictors before they even begin the search. Most search engines should have this function. If I read about the different function on search engines before I started, it would have made my searches much more easier and faster.

Jami Kaneshiro

Jami described the web engine as a library system but it contains a whole lot more information that can be readily assessable. What a search engine is, it is made up of several database that have been created together to make up a search engine.

Her first search on a search engine ended in frustration. She couldn't get into the net search and the computer would pop up with an error message. She tried quitting and restarting it with no success. She finally quit competely and tried again at another location. Finally, she got into a search engine and found cyber-community. The only thing was that she was unhappy that it takes really long to get into net search. And another thing she really hates is that waiting around for pages to be loaded. Her answer is to click the stop button and continue to another site. Yes, I too, have found some sites that takes a really long time to load because of the picture content. I can't wait all day so I move on to other more quicker search. It gets irritating waiting around for something to be loaded and you just sit there with nothing to do. She also found some other problem with using search engines. Sometimes you will find that certains hits are irrelevant to your search, therefore, she suggest that you should read the search engine instruction before you begin searching. I think she is right, sometimes, you must read the helpful instruction to narrow down broad topics and leave out unrelated topic. This will save a lot of time and won't leave you in frustration with irrelevant hits.

3. Conclusion:
What I have learned!

What I learned is that using different search engine will produce different search results. For example, When I used the search engine Infoseek, it gave me so many sites from it's database that some were irrelevant to what I was searching for. Each hit shows a percentage of relevancy to my topic and related sites to that page. The higher the percentage, the higher the match to the topic. But, I found out that, that's not always the case. Sometimes the ones that match the topic the least are the very ones that I was looking for. But nobody has time to search through thousands of sites so the best thing is to make the search as narrow or as specific as possible. By doing this, you will get the least and relevant amount of hits.

When I used the search engine Yahoo, I had an easier time finding my topic because a lot of my topic are general, not specific. Yahoo is a great search engine to use if your topic is general. It contains catagories and subcatagories where you can search from general to specific. I really like this search engine.

What I suggest for the next generation is not to make the same mistake I did. I did not read search engine instruction and HELP before I start using the search engine for the first time. Even though this is not the first time you've used search engine, it's very helpful to read the tips to make your topic search easier. Another thing is, don't procrastinate! Give yourselve time to input data and revise what you have done. There are always room for improvement. Good luck!!

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