Strategies for accessing information and use of search engines

The internet is a vast sea of information where you can easily get lost if you do not know how to search for information effectively. To find information on the internet, you can use various search engines, each providing different search results. Therefore, it is important to use multiple search engines and compare the results. Remember too that the search engines you use will learn from what you personally do; depending on what you have looked for in the past, they will serve up different information for you than they would to another user.

To ensure the success of your information search using keywords, you should master the search commands needed, such as AND, OR, NOT, or “”, +, (). To reduce the number of search results, you can also limit the search according to time period, language, and type of material, for example, ‘2000-, English, articles’.

Effective information searching also involves evaluating and filtering search results, such as distinguishing commercial and ideological hits from fact-based ones. Are the links you have identified ‘sponsored’? 

In addition to the internet, you should also use reference books. Therefore, you should familiarise yourself with the library classification system and practise finding books and other resources in the library database.