Searching focuses on a specific goal and should not be confused with browsing, which is a non-focused activity. Browsing is an activity based on a faith in serendipity (the accidental acquisition of something beneficial). Although it often results in the discovery of important information, it is not an efficient means of finding it. Browsing involves many of the same concepts as searching, but will not be discussed here.

Basic Concepts:

1. Define your "target", which is the information that you are seeking. Are you looking for a single piece of information? Or are you searching for as much information as possible on a given topic? Any information that you already have about the target can serve as a "seed" for the search. Each item of data that is found as the result of a search is called a hit.
2. Decide on your approach to the search. The two most common approaches are called "top-down" and "bottom-up". These will be discussed below, but usually depend on whether the seed is general or specific, respectively.
3. Pick a suitable starting point. Find an index such as a telephone directory or a search tool such as the phone company's Directory Assistance service with a proven record of usefulness with respect to the target information. Each search method has its own strengths and weaknesses, and some search tools are more effective for one search method than for another. Some search tools search a large collection of resources, others search very limited ones. Some tools are faster than others. Some are simple, other sophisticated and complex. All of them provide instructions. Read them!
4. Decide on the desired format for the results (hits) of your search. How do you want them presented? Do you want a summary or a detailed list? Should the list be sorted in some way? Should the hits be analyzed or ranked with respect to relevance to your search?

Defining a Search Target:

Each item of data that is found as the result of a search is called a hit. If you are looking for someone in the telephone directory with the name William Johnson, then the name William Johnson is the target. Either the word "William" or the word "Johnson" (or both) could be used to seed the search. The more specific the seed information, the more likely you are to get the exact hits that you seek. If your search turns up three listings for people with that name, then your search returned three hits. Usually a search seed of just "Johnson" would result in many more hits than "William Johnson".

The number of hits that you get for a search can be greatly affected by the wording that you use for your search phrase. Consideration must be given to the following:

• Do you want it to match your search phrase exactly (including matching upper and lower case)?
• Do you care if a search tool hits on "books" if you asked for "book"? Would you like the ability to use wildcards such as "*" to enter a search phrase such as "book*" to ask for both "book" and "books"?
• Do you want your search tool to assume that a search phrase of "Palm Beach" means "Palm AND Beach", or should it mean "Palm OR Beach"? The results would be vastly different!

Search Approaches:

Whenever you start with general or vague seed information and use it to find more and more specific information, you are using the top-down approach. When you have very specific information as your seed, you will most likely use the bottom-up approach.

Starting Points:

If you plan to perform a bottom-up search from a specific seed, then you should find a good a search engine. Each search tool is unique, so don't believe that learning one has taught you all of them. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses, so you should try a few. Most computer programs that manage large amounts of data, such as database management software, provide powerful search facilities to allow users to search for very specific items of data within enormous files.

Result Formats:

The results of a search could appear in many different formats. They could appear as a detailed list, or they could appear as a summary list. Each item found might appear on its own sheet of paper, or all items might be grouped in a single list. Results could be sorted alphabetically, or by date, or size, etc. The hits might be ranked with respect to relevance to your search. For example, if you search using the seed information of "William Michael Johnson", the search tool might list the hits on items containing all three names first, and then items containing only two of the three names next, and so on. Computer software will often allow you many options for formatting your output.

Internet Search Tools:

One good way to practice with different search tools is on the Internet. Many people incorrectly refer to all Internet search tools as "search engines". These should not be confused with top-down tools such as the popular service named "Yahoo!", an Internet web guide. Most Internet search tools now offer both approaches. If you look at the Yahoo! web site, you will see that they have a nice alphabetically organized subject outline for top-down searching, but also have a search engine that allows users to provide specific seeds for the performance of a bottom-up search.

The Yahoo! web site can be found using almost any Internet service by using that service's web browser and entering the web instruction (a.k.a. a URL) of:

You can find a wide variety of information on Internet Search tools by looking at these other sites:

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