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8-fold Logo     The Eight-fold Path to Right Searching: Tips, Tasks, & Tools

    course content by P. F. Anderson, pfa@umich.edu,
    presented by P. F. Anderson and Karen Reiman-Sendi.

More Tips (Refine Your Search): Quality Reviewed Links & How to Find Them

Tips: Basics | "1" | (2) | 3=OR | 4=site | 5=filetype | +6 | -7 | ~8 |
More Tips (Refinements): Compare | Truncate | Terms | Quality | Features | Features 2 | Expert | Redux


  1. Search in search engine's directory
  2. Locate a selected directory on the topic, such as HealthWeb for health and medicine or StatLibfor statistics. DMOZ Directory (a.k.a. Google directory) sometimes lists these under specific topics, and is itself a collection of selected links. Other similare resources include:
  3. Try searching for phrases like portal, "web directory", "web links", "web tools", "web sources", "internet sources", and similar phrases, limiting to the type of institution most likely to have created a useful directory on your topic. Be wary of terms than can carry multiple meanings, such as "library". For example:
  4. Try searching for general reference terms, like encyclopedia, dictionary, database, glossary, and such. Be wary of terms than can carry multiple meanings, such as "library". For example:
  5. Try searching for Web 2.0 communities devoted to your topic. For example:
  6. Folksonomy tools, bookmark and link favorite searches, searching personal history tools:
  7. Reference search engines that link or point to other tools on topics, and web 2.0 general discovery tools, such as:

Tips: Basics | "1" | (2) | 3=OR | 4=site | 5=filetype | +6 | -7 | ~8 |
More Tips (Refinements): Compare | Truncate | Terms | Quality | Features | Features 2 | Expert | Redux

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"1. The belief that information-sharing is a powerful positive good, and that it is an ethical duty of hackers to share their expertise by writing open-source and facilitating access to information and to computing resources wherever possible." -- Human Resources Development Canada. "hacker ethic." The New Hacker's Dictionary version 4.2.2. URL: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/3008
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