Use the form below to search for documents in this web containing specific
words or combinations of words. The text search engine will display a weighted
list of matching documents, with better matches shown first. Each list item is a
link to a matching document; if the document has a title it will be shown,
otherwise only the document's file name is displayed. A brief explanation
of the query language and tutorial are available, along with examples.
Good luck to find whatever you want.
Metasearch - interfaces to multiple
search engines
- All-in-One Search Page from W.
Cross
- Ask
Jeeves-Ask.com
- CUSI (Configurable Unified Search
Engine) (Nexor)
- Dogpile
- EZ-Find at
The River
- Find-It!
- Highway 61
- Internet Sleuth
- Mamma
- National
Library of medicine---PubMed
- Netscape
Search
- Magellan - reviews sites as
well as giving search abilities.
- Medscape -
medical info.
- Telephone Directories, etc.
(555-1212.com)
- WebSEEk -
content-based image & video searcher.
- Webtaxi
Find People Online
- A1 Trace USA
- Bigfoot--Tools
for the Internet
- CataList - catalog of
LISTSERV lists
- Email List Search (Tile.Net)
- Find
people fast
- Find People
on the Internet
- Hot_Mail
- List archives at
APPLE.EASE.LSOFT.COM
- ListBot - tool for keeping in touch.
- Liszt - searchable directory of email
lists.
- MessageBot - formally eList
- OneList
- Publicly Accessible
Mailing Lists
- Search
The List of Lists
- WhoWhere?
- Yahoo!People Search
Query Language
The text search engine allows queries to be formed from arbitrary Boolean
expressions containing the keywords AND, OR, and NOT, and grouped with
parentheses. For example:
- information retrieval
- finds documents containing 'information' or 'retrieval'
- information or retrieval
- same as above
- information and retrieval
- finds documents containing both 'information' and 'retrieval'
- information not retrieval
- finds documents containing 'information' but not 'retrieval'
- (information not retrieval) and WAIS
- finds documents containing 'WAIS', plus 'information' but not
'retrieval'
- web*
- finds documents containing words starting with 'web'
Brief Tutorial
Using the analogy of surfing the information superhighway, your web
browser could be thought of as the surfboard. To take the analogy further,
search engines (i.e., software) are like good waves. Having the skills to use
the various search engines and tools is like knowing how to surf. These skills
will enable you to navigate the info superhighway more effeciently and thus
find what you are looking for much more quickly and easily.
Searching involves an understanding of basic logic or more precisely
Boolean Logic. In the simplist case, you enter one or more key words
and then tell the program to search. But if you want to surf the big waves,
you have to fully understand what AND and OR mean. A AND
B means both A and B must occur for an item to be flagged as having met your
criteria. A OR B means that either A or B can occur for an item to be
flagged. If you replace the capital letters with words that describe what you
are interested in, you can combine a number of words with AND's and OR's
between them to create very precise searches. In this way, you can get to
exactly what you are interested in much more quickly. Most search engines have
various options that can be set to refine the search (e.g., the type of
resource searched, how detailed & how much output, etc.). Furthermore,
most of the search engines have two ways of being used: a simple & an
advanced mode (or interface). The latter usually permit the type of more
advanced query described above. See the Help Section of each search engine
(e.g., Yahoo, Alta
Vista) for more details on its specific capabilities and syntax.
For more info still, see:
Search Operators Cheat Sheet
|
Operator |
Description |
Meaning |
Example |
Notes |
| + |
plus sign |
word required to appear |
house +blue |
without +, word is considered a request. |
| - |
minus sign |
word required not to appear |
house -blue |
|
| " |
quotes |
creates a multiword phrase |
"blue house" |
|
| & |
AND |
both words required |
blue & house |
Most sites assume this operator by default. |
| | |
OR |
either word required |
house | home |
|
| ! |
NOT |
used like - operator |
house & ! blue |
|
| ~ |
NEAR |
words must be within a
few words of each other |
green ~ house |
In Infoseek use [ ]. |
| () |
parenthesis |
groups operators |
house & (blue | red) |
|
| * |
wildcard |
substitutes for any
number of characters |
house & gr* |
|
Copyright ? 1999~2004 Bin Tang. All rights reserved. Revised: Dec. 18, 2003
.
|
