Best Practices for Web and Database Searching

Goal(s) for this Lesson:: Student will gain an understanding of the concepts associated with search strategies in an online environment.
Objective(s) for this Lesson:: Student will be able to identify and apply various search strategies/techniques:
a. Building Blocks
b. Least Posted/Most Specific
c. Citation Pearl Growing
d. Successive Fractions
[Adapted from Harter, Stephen P. Online information retrieval: concepts, principles, and techniques. Orlando: Academic Press, 1986; and Walker, Geraldene, and Joseph Janes. Online Retrieval: A Dialogue of Theory and Practice. 2nd Ed. Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited, 1999.]; Student will have a basic understanding of factors affecting the search:
a. Boolean
   AND
   OR
   NOT
b. Spelling Variations:
   Abbrevations, Plurals, and International Spellings
c. Search Technology
   Basic vs. Advanced Search and Limiters
   Controlled Vocabulary vs. Natural Language Processing
   Stemming, Truncation / Wildcards, Stop-Words (Stoplist); Student will be able to identify the primary characteristics of the following resources: Online Databases, Search Engines, and Web Directories; Student will be able to identify appropriate online resources in which to conduct searches.