Top things people use the Internet for:

Research

To find information on the internet, use a specific website called a Search Engine. I think they called them engines because they are powerful and do the work of finding what you want.  Search engines are the card catalogues of the internet.   The internet it is like a giant library that spans the globe, and you can find out information on any topic you can think of. 

How do you sift through everything and find what you want???  You use a Search Engine!  Search engines work by matching key words that you type into them. For example: if you wanted to find fishing opportunities in Montana, you might type in the key words Montana Fishing.  

Tips to narrow down your search.

• Be specific
• Search using keywords

Use many keywords separated by a comma.

     Some search engines I call  Multiple Search Engines because they search many search engines.  There are several multiple search engines listed above including ALL THE WEB, DOGPILE, AND MAMMA. 

 

Specific Search Engines

A great resource found on the internet is search engines that specialize in something.  I call these Specific Search Engines.  Listed below are some examples of Specific Search Engines and Websites useful for research. These would be great resource sites to put in your favorites or bookmark!

Law

For example LawCrawler http://www.lawcrawler.com/ and Rominger Legal http://www.romingerlegal.com/ search only through law related websites. All federal laws are online. You can look at the United States Code http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/ . New laws in the making, your senators and representative are all available through Thomas Legislative Information on the Internet http://thomas.loc.gov/home/thomas.html . This can save you a lot of time if you are doing some legal research.

Zip Code Directory

Would you like to track your package, order stamps online, or find out what city does a certain zip code relate to? Try the United States Postal Service at http://www.usps.gov/ncsc/ .

Lists of Lists

Finally, these two lists have loads of resources for your research: The LLNL List of Lists http://www.llnl.gov/llnl/lists/listsl.html and Front Page’s Collection of Search Engines http://www.the frontpage.com/search/search.html

Online Dictionary

The nicest dictionary online is the Hypertext Webster http://work.ucsd.edu:5141/cgi-bin/http_webster/ . The WWW Acronym and Abbreviation server http://www.ucc.ie/info/net/acronyms/ is perfect for finding out what they really mean

Medical Libraries Online

Q: My daughter has a bad case of Iritis, an eye condition that threatens to render my daughter blind. I'm interested in finding more information on this topic on the Internet. Can you help me find information with this as an example? Sam

A : Start your search at the most factual sources and proceed to the ones more likely to be gossip. First, search the medical libraries online. There is a nice list of medical libraries at http://galaxy.einet.net/galaxy/Reference/Libraries/Medical-and-Health-Science.html. Then search the web for "Medical Resources" in any of the popular search engines like Yahoo, Excite, Alta Vista, Infoseek and so on. You can use DejaNews at http://www.dejanews.com/ to search for the most likely Usenet newsgroup to find the group that discusses iritis and past articles about the disease. And you can also post new articles and responses using DejaNews or your own newsbrowser. Finally, consider getting on a Listserv Mailing list to understand how other parents are coping with the situation. Some good lists of mailing lists are http://www.neosoft.com/internet/paml/ and http://www.lsoft.com/lists/listref.html.

Libraries

CARL and UnCover http://www.carl.org/. are some of my favorite places to search through libraries on the web. You can check Purdue’s Library http://thorplus.lib.perdue.edu/reference/index.html and the Library of Congress http://lcweb.loc.gov/catalog/ directly online also.

Maps

Are you traveling somewhere, doing a project for your geography class, or just curious to know where in the world Timbuktu is? Try Mapquest http://www.mapquest.com/

Colleges and Universities

Are you interested in information about Universities and Colleges in United States, Canada and New Zeland? Look it up in College Net http://www.collegenet.com/ Then, if you need some financial aid, look in FinAid http://www.finaid.org/. They have over 180,000 sources for funds for you.

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