Being able to read the URL of a site will help you evaluate before you spend time working with it. The domain designation has information related to the source of the web page.
Indications you are on a personal page that should be scrutinized for bias, accuracy and authority.
Does the URL have a tilde: ~?
Does the URL have %?
Does the URL include a personal name?
Does the URL include words like: users, people or members?
Boolean searching is the traditional way to search for information in most online databases and on the Internet. Boolean operators or connector words, such as AND, OR, and NOT, are used to create phrases and concepts based on specific rules of search logic.
| Operator | Examples | Results |
| AND |
|
Retrieves records that contain ALL of the search terms. |
| OR |
|
Retrieves records that contain ANY of the search terms, but does not necessarily include all of them. |
| NOT |
|
Excludes records containing the second search term. |
Quotation Marks: Use quotation marks when searching to keep phrases together.
Examples:
Solar System, search "Solar System"
War of 1812 , search "War of 1812".
Truncation: Add the symbol * to a root word to locate various forms of that word
Examples:
teen* would locate teen, teens, teenager, teenagers
child* would locate child, children, childhood