An Internet Search

Guide for Health Care

Professionals
Interactive tutorial
 Goal and Objective
 The goal of this interactive tutorial is to help health care
professionals save their time (and money) and retrieve
needed information in a most efficient and information
literate way.
 At the completion of the tutorial (which will take about 10
minutes) the students with even minimal web searching
skills will be able to distinguish between Internet
Directories and Search Engines, weigh their advantages
and disadvantages, choose the appropriate search
strategy and critically evaluate the retrieved websites.
 Table of Contents
 Selecting the Search Tool
1. Internet Directories
2. Search Engines
 Search Strategies
1. Matching Exact Phrase
2. Truncation or Wild Card
3. Boolean Operators
4. Case Sensitivity
 Evaluating Internet resources
1. Authority
2. Objectivity
3. Accuracy
4. Currency
5. Coverage
 Selecting the Search Tool
 The two major tools used for searching for specific
information on the Web are INTERNET DIRECTORIES
and INTERNET SEARCH ENGINES. Each has its own
advantages and disadvantages, and should be chosen
at the right time. Recently the differences between them
have become less clear due to the continuous
development of the Web: some directories now contain
an internal search engine or offer links to web search
engines.
 Internet Directories

 provide selected and categorized information

 most useful when you have a specific topic in mind or
want to get a general idea about what's available on a
subject
 can include reviews or a rating system of the selected
resources
 retrieve fewer documents than search engines, but
usually less false hits
 directories are basically collections of Web links. They
are not comprehensive indexes to huge database of web
documents, but rather catalogs of selected material.
 Internet Directories (continue)

 Some directories such as Yahoo, contain general

information on a wide variety of subjects. Other
directories, like Healthweb, contain material related to a
specific subject area such as nursing. Take a look at
each to see the differences between the general and
specific. Recommended Internet Directories for health
care resources:
 Medical Matrix (Requires registration but free)
 MedlinePlus (Created for non-professionals, but a useful
starting point for anyone looking for information on
diseases)
 Yahoo (a very general extensive directory)
 Internet Search Engines
 retrieve many more hits than directories because of
the number of documents included in the database,
but with a higher probability for false hits
 especially useful for finding unusual words and less
common subjects
 allow extensive use of search language to target
information
 the most relevant documents are retrieved first
 retrieve items that match the words keyed in but do
not take into consideration the context
 Internet Search Engines (continue)
 Search engines are basically programs that quickly
searches huge databases of words selected from web
documents. A part of the search engine sometimes
known as a robot, spider or crawler continuously works
at building a database by examining new documents at
web sites, and revisiting previously scanned documents.
 It is important to understand that search engines use
words and phrases to retrieve information, and not
concepts. For example searching for insulin dependent
diabetes mellitus (IDDM) will also retrieve some
resources on non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus
(NIDDM) because the engine is searching for the words
keyed-in and not for the disease concept.
 Internet Search Engines (continue)

 The "spider" is programmed to select words from certain

parts of a web document, or from the entire document.
You may need to use several search engines for the
most comprehensive and accurate retrieval. The results
will vary because of the way the "spider" works.
 Some Recommended Internet Search Engines:
Google
Alta Vista
HotBot
 Review Questions #1
1. If you have a particular subject in mind or want to retrieve fewer
but more accurate documents, you will choose:
 Internet Directory
 Search Engine
2. To retrieve material related to a specific subject area such as
nursing you will use:
 Alta Vista
 Healthweb
 HotBot
3. To retrieve information, search engines use:
 concepts
 words and phrases
Correct!

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 OOPS!
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 Search Strategies
Here are a few helpful hints on how to design your
strategy more efficiently in order to target the exact
information:
Before you start your searching, read all available
"help" documentation. Go through any help screens to
find out how a particular search engine requires a search
query to be entered on the provided forms. It will minimize
mysterious retrieval results, and better target relevant
documents.
Not all search engines use the same search strategies or
symbols. Do not assume because a symbol works in
Northern Light that it will also work in Google.
Strategies for a basic search may be different than those
for an advanced search.
Remember that a particular search engine may change
overnight!!!!
 Search Strategies (continue)

Sometimes it is important to search using Matching Exact

Phrase as a whole, rather than retrieving information about
each individual word (as is often the default with a
particular search engine). Read help screens to find out
what to use - parentheses, quotation marks or a pull down
menu - to target an exact phrase.
Some examples of when an exact phrase search would be
appropriate:
Finding information about an organization or association:
e.g. American Medical Association
Targeting a particular disease, diagnosis, or therapy: e.g.
Graves Disease
Targeting a group of words most often used in an exact
order, and which will retrieve many false hits if searched
separately: e.g. health maintenance organizations
 Search Strategies (continue)

 Truncation or Wild Card symbol is used at the end,

beginning or middle of a word to search for word
variations. Read any help screens for information on
truncation symbols accepted by a specific engine. The
most common symbols used are *, # and ?. In some
engines truncation may be automatic, retrieving
documents less than relevant to the search. For ex.,
 Right sided truncation--Eg: occlu* will also find occlusive,
occluding, occludes, occluded... Good for searching
plural as well as singular forms of a word.
 Left sided truncation--Eg: *phobia will find agoraphobia,
homophobia, claustrophobia...
 Middle of word truncation--Eg: wom#n will find both
woman and women
 (continue)

 Many search engines use Boolean operators such

as AND, OR, NOT for combining of words and
concepts. Some search engines require the
operators to be in all caps, others do not.
 Check the help screens for the availability of
operators in a particular engine. Do not assume
that an engine will automatically retrieve all of the
words keyed-in or in a specific word order.
 AND will retrieve documents with all of the words
present though not necessarily next to each other.
e.g. graves AND disease will retrieve documents
containing both the words graves and disease,
though not necessarily the phrase graves disease.
 (continue)

 OR will retrieve documents with any of the words

present. This type of search is especially useful for
combining a number of synonyms in a search. For
example, Prozac OR fluoxetine will retrieve all
documents no matter how the author has referred to this
particular drug in the web page.
 NOT will retrieve documents with some of the words
present but not others. e.g. pig NOT guinea.
 ADJ, NEAR, WITHIN are proximity operators and will
assist in retrieving documents with words in a certain
position in a sentence or next to each other. e.g.
smoking NEAR children
 (continue)
 Most search engines are not case sensitive, but
sometimes it is important to capitalize the letters for the
most accurate retrieval. Resources retrieved will only be
those which contain the word(s) searched for in exactly
the manner entered into the database. (AIDS will retrieve
a different set of resources than aids). Read the
available help screens for a specific engine.
 For example, try searching for dB (referring to decibel) in
HotBot, then try searching for db or DB. The # of
retrieved results will be significantly different and the
search for dB more focused on the desired topic than the
searches on db or DB.
 Acronyms also can be used to retrieve exact information
because they will be searched as a word (e.g. HMOs for
health maintenance organizations). Note that a search
for AMA (the American Medical Association) will retrieve
at the same time sites related to the American
Motorcycle Association and American Management
Association.
 Review Questions #2
1. Before you started searching, remember that:
1. To read Help Information is a waste of time
2. All search engines use the same search strategies and
symbols
3. None of the above
2. To retrieve more efficiently information about health maintenance
organizations, you will use:
 Boolean logic
 Truncation
 Exact phrase search technique
3. The most common symbols for truncation or wildcard are:
 *, # , and ?.
 =, +, and %

4. To retrieve information about Prozac and fluoxetine, you will use :

 OR
 AND
 NEAR
Correct!

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OOPS!

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Evaluation of information found on the Internet is necessary
because the quality of Web resources varies tremendously.
Resources retrieved from the Web for professional use
should be held to the same high standards as required by
other materials. Key aspects of evaluating any resource
include criteria such as:
authority
objectivity
accuracy
currency
coverage
 (continue)

 Authority: Who is sponsoring the Web page? What

are their credentials?
 A known, reputable organization such as the
American Diabetes Association can usually be
trusted to provide reliable information, though the
accuracy of links can not be guaranteed.
 Search engines may retrieve Web pages out of
context so it is difficult to figure out the source. Try to
return to the homepage of the sponsoring
organization for documentation.
 (continue)

 Objectivity: Is the page free from bias?

 Pages sponsored by a business or manufacturer such as
a drug company may have a specific slant to the
information provided.
 Accuracy: How reliable and valid is the information
presented?
 Many Web pages are not peer reviewed or examined by
fact checkers. Before using the information found on the
Web important facts can be checked against other
sources.
 (continue)

 Currency: How up to date is the information presented?

 There is no standardization to the meaning of dates on a
Web page. The date may refer to when the page was
written, when it was put on the Web, or when it was last
revised.
 Seek out a date on the page. Pages kept current
probably contain more reliable information.
 Evaluate pages separately as you move through the
links.
 Coverage: What is the scope of the page?
 It is often difficult to determine the depth of coverage of a
subject on a Web page since the format is different than
print. The information presented in a Web version may
be provided in a condensed form.
 Review Questions #3
1. Usually it is very easy to figure out who is sponsoring the web
page:
 True
 False
2. Pages sponsored by drug companies are very objective and
unbiased:
 True
 False
3. Important facts found on Internet should be always checked
against other sources:
 True
 False
Correct!

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