Journal 8: Focus on Search Engines and Web Sites

Search Tool: SNAP
I liked that SNAP had a preview screen on the right side and the results on the left side.  I experimented with the mullet example from the video log.  I first typed "mullet" with a result of 2,850,000. By changing it to "mullet and -hair" the results decreased to 1,740,000.  But when I typed in "mulle* and -hair" the results only included results with Mulle. From this I figured that SNAP does not recognize the boolean operator *.  I could not find an advanced search option anywhere on the page, so I looked at settings.  This drop down menu allowed you to chose whether nor not SNAP would give you "search term suggestions", "adult warning", "preview image", and "click to open result".  I tried to click on these and was unable to change any of these settings.

MetaSearch Tool: SurfWax
I found this site to be very frustrating!  I typed "mullet" in the search box and got no results by the time I had the whole word typed.  I did like that as you started typing your search results began to show up and it continued to rearrange the results accordingly.  Since I wasn't very successful I clicked on the "tip".  This told me that it "covers the last 7 days from 120 popular RSS sites."  I was very confused.  I couldn't find and advanced search, so I decided that I would come back to this site later.  When I came back I discovered that if I clicked "Original SurfWax" I could actually do a search.  I did like the feature of "Site Snaps".  This allows you to look into parts of the article.  I tried the mullet example again my results were 7 out of 7 pages.  I typed in "mullet -hair" and "mullet and -hair" I got the same two results.  Within the Site Snaps there was and "Author Summary", "Key Point" and "Site's Focus Words".  I liked this feature, because you could skim through and learn if the article is on that you would want to use
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Subject Directory: About.Com
This time I tried my keyword search from my topic. At first I typed in "privacy and law and U.S." and got 65,400 results.  As I skimmed them I noticed several of them were cases, so I added "-v" to my search and narrowed it down to 62,300.  I learned that About.com recognized the "and" and "-", but it did not recognize the "*" and "or".  It did have tab to "Explore Topics" that listed topics in alphabetical order and a tab "Browse Categories", which allowed you to pick a category and choose a topic under that category. Again, I couldn't find anything that would indicate I could do an advanced search.  I did like the colorful nature of this Subject Directory.

I really liked SNAP because of its preview screen.  I wouldn't have to waste time checking out the web site and having to click the back button.  I would not have to leave my results unless I thought the preview of the website was worth my time.  I might use this tool on a future research project.  Like I said above, the SurfWax tool was very frustrating, I would stay clear of that one.  About.com would be a site that I would visit to see if I could find my topic in one of their categories.  Out of all the places we have visited so far this quarter, I like ProQuest.