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There is no worksheet for this WebQuest. Just get a blank sheet of paper and number it with each job.
Hint: watch for the underlined stuff. That's the stuff you have to write on the paper.
WARNING: If you find that AOL@School blocks any of the sites listed below, you may need to use Internet Explorer instead. If so, YOU MUST LET ME KNOW FIRST so I can monitor your work.
Job #1. First, we are going to look at how most people search. Let's pretend you just got an assignment to write a paper about George Washington's life. Most people would just go to a search engine and type in,
george washington
The problem with doing this is that you are asking the search engine to find all pages with the words george and washington. Try it yourself! Go to each of the search engines on the Resources Page, and type in:
george washington
Then write down how many hits you get for each one. Usually, this is given as a number at the top of the results page. It may say something like "Results 1-10 of 16728390." This means that the page you are looking at shows only the first 10 results, and the total number of hits was 16728390. 16728390 is the number to write down.
Job #2. Now try something just a little bit different. This time, go back to those search engines and type in
"George Washington"
Make sure you put quotation marks around the words. What you are doing is telling the search engine that you want only pages with the phrase "George Washington" to be in the results. Before, all you were doing was looking for pages with either of those words.
Write down how many results you get this time! Did you have more, or less?
Job #3. When you put quotation marks around the words, you probably got fewer results. But you are probably still getting way too many results for what you need. It's time to narrow your results some more. Your assignment was to write a paper about George Washington's life, right? One thing to try is to choose a detail and search for that. Let's choose George's birthday.
If a person were making a webpage about when someone was born, what would they write? Maybe something like, "George Washington was born on..." and then give the date. So now, try typing this into the Google search engine (www.google.com):
"George Washington was born"
Don't forget the quotation marks! Now how many results do you get?
Job #4. Great! You should have only a few results now. Of course, on the Internet, "a few" can still mean thousands. But we're getting there.
If you were writing a paper about George, you'd need to know more than just when he was born. You can use more than one set or quotation marks when you type in your keywords. You can also use a combination of single words and quotation marks. Go to www.google.com and try this:
"George Washington was born" president died "cherry tree"
How many results this time?
Job #5. If you are having a hard time finding something, some search engines have an advanced search. Go to www.google.com and click on the Advanced Search link. It has a bunch of different fields to fill out. You can fill out only one, or all of them. Here is what each of them do.
This feature is VERY useful when you are searching for something and keep getting results you don't want. Try this: type the word banana in the "with all of the words" field. How many results are there? Notice that several of the results are for "Banana Republic" (the clothing company).
Next try typing the word banana in the "with all of the words" field. Then type republic in the "without the words" field. How many results do you have now?
Job #6. Now you have learned how to narrow down your searches. To test your new skills, use the Advanced Search at www.google.com to find the answers to the following questions. For each one, tell exactly what you typed, and where, to find the answer.
a. Who said, "I liked myself better when I wasn't me"? (Hint: That would be an exact phrase, wouldn't it?)
b. When and where was the 19th president of the United States born?
c. Who invented the camera?
d. Who won the 1968 World Series?
d. What is the approximate population of Puerto Rico?