| I have an idea for a broad topic I want an overview of my topic |
Yahoo organizes information in "subject
trees" from general to specific topics |
| I need a small number of relevant hits and an idea of what's in each document
before I go to each page |
Excite hits have excellent summaries. |
| What's available on the Internet for my topic? |
Dogpile simultaneously searches 23 different
databases - so you'll get a broad range of sites |
| I don't have a lot of time - so I want quality, evaluated sites that have
reviews and ratings. |
Magellan is a smaller database with descriptive
reviews of sites. |
| I want to do a simple, straightforward search of a word or phrase. |
Lycos is a good choice for such a search |
| I need to do a pinpoint search because my terms are narrow. |
Alta Vista is the largest of the Web
databases, and is a fast indexer of full text. |
| I have common keywords that probably appear in many documents and should make
my search specific. |
HotBot offers lots of options for searching, with
ranked results |
| I'm looking for a phrase or string of words |
Open Text is a good place to find a phrase,
quotation, etc. |
| I want to browse |
Yahoo with its subject trees, is always a good
place to browse. |
| I need balanced information from verified sources that I can take home with me |
Go to the library card catalog! |