Common Knowledge: Pittsburgh

Informational Newsletter
Volume 96, Number 1
/projects/ckp/newsletter/v96n1.html

Searching the World Wide Web

Our last newsletter introduced the World Wide Web (WWW). This newsletter expands the topic and introduces the idea of searching the WWW.

The web is growing so fast that it is difficult to keep up with all the available resources. When you have a resource as complex as the WWW, the best way of getting to a particular resource is to do a search. There are a variety of ways to search the World Wide Web. Generally when you do a search, you should have a keyword or topic in mind. Here are some things to consider when doing a web search: if you choose a word that is too specific, you will probably not get any results; if the word is too general, you will get too many results, many of which will not pertain to your subject.

In order to search, you will have to go to a site on the WWW that contains a search engine. The following sites have search engines with easy to use forms for keywords and topics.

Yahoo Search Mechanism - http://www.yahoo.com/: This site allows you to search by topic, such as art, education, etc. It is one of the most popular sites on the web.
The Internet Sleuth - http://www.isleuth.com/: Here you can search alphabetically through a variety of databases.
W3 Search Engine - http://cuiwww.unige.ch/meta-index.html: This site contains mechanisms that search information, people, software, publications and news.
The Lycos Home Page - http://lycos.cs.cmu.edu/: This is an excellent tool for hunting information on the WWW. It was developed at Carnegie-Mellon University.
WebCrawler Searching - http://webcrawler.com/: This engine allows you to search by document title and content. It is one of the fastest search engines on the WWW.
WWWW - World Wide Web Worm - http://wwww.cs.colorado.edu/wwww: The Worm is continually scouring the Web for resources and provides you with search capabilities on its valuable database of 300,000 multimedia objects.

Frequently Asked Questions

Question: What do the results of a search look like?

Answer: The results of a search are a list of sites that are related to your keywords. The list is interactive - meaning you can point and click on any of the titles/items and go to that resource. Here are the results of a sample search on the Webcrawler using the keywords endangered species.

WebCrawler Search Results

The query "endangered species" found 402 documents and returned 25:

100 THREATENED AND ENDANGERED SPECIES AT KSC
077 Wetlands and Endangered Species_Environmental Technical Services Co.
057 Endangered Habitats League
047 Calling Cards
046 Jacques' Stamp Page
032 Environmental Organization WebDirectory
030 Endangered Species Greeting Cards
027 Educational Bookmarks
024 Endangered Species in the Edwards Aquifer System
021 International Wildlife Education & Conservation saving our endangered species around the world
021 MTNHP DIRECTORY
020 The Middlebury College Endangered Species Homepage's List of Vermont Species
017 Elephant - Facts at your Fingertips
016 Texas A&M; University Plant Diversity Information Center
016 http://www.ring.com/zoo/belle.htm
016 Satellite Tracking of Threatened Species
016 Factsheets and News Releases on Threatened and Endangered Species
015 Earth Day 1996 March
015 Petition for Environmental Protection in Lebanon
015 The Last Desperado
015 National Wildlife Federation: Education, Teacher Resource
015 http://www.law.indiana.edu/envdec/c.html
014 Rainforest Birds
014 http://www.sidus.ca/RIVER/TIES/TIEHOM.HTM

Obtaining Help

Common Knowledge: Pittsburgh maintains a number of email addresses that provide users with online help. If you have an account on the system and would like to obtain answers to common questions, send email to:

trouble@pps.pgh.pa.us (technical assistance)

resources@pps.pgh.pa.us (curricular assistance)

info@ckp.edu (information pertaining to Common Knowledge: Pittsburgh)

sliplube@pps.pgh.pa.us (setting up a slip account on a PC)

macslip@pps.pgh.pa.us (setting up a slip account on a MAC)

If you are a PPS employee and would like an Internet account, call us at 622-5930.