|| FAST Search || Google || Northern Light || Other Web Sites About Malpractice ||

Why do you need to use (and need to know how to use) more than one search engine?  It's because none of the search engines covers all of the Internet.   Each of the search engines has its own peculiarities.  You'll be a better searcher if you spend some time getting aquainted with how to use them to best advantage.  This page will introduce you to 3 of the major search engines: FAST Search, Google, and Northern Light.

To get to a list of Internet Search Engines

1. Be on the Cabrillo College Library homepage  http://libwww.cabrillo.cc.ca.us
2. Click on Search the Internet
3. Click on Search Engines

• Use quotation marks around phrases
• Use an asterisk (*) to search for variable word endings
• Use a plus sign in front of a term (no space) to require it in the search result
• Use a minus sign in front of a term (no space) to disallow it in the search result

If I were searching for malpractice and medical personnel, and I wanted Web pages that mentioned the word 
"cases," and I did NOT want cases involving nurses, my search might look like this:

• Use quotation marks around phrases
• Use an asterisk (*) to search for variable word endings
• Google automatically ANDs terms together; you don't need to use the plus sign

The search query box on the initial search screen is small; but you can keep typing!! (This is true of all search engines I know about.)  My search statement could have been "medical malpractice" "medical personnel" case*
which would have narrowed the results.

Adding words narrows a search statement -- as long as there are Web pages with those words, in the order you specify.
For example, if my search statement on Google is "cases of medical malpractice" "medical personnel", I get (as of today) 3 results.  That's 3 Web sites out of an estimated 880 million!!, so I have been pretty specific in my search.  However, I may have missed some really good sites, for example, all those that used terminology that mentioned medical personnel involved in medical malpractice cases (rather than cases of medical malpractice).

What's the answer?  Play around a bit.  Try doing broad searches; then try more narrow ones.  Computers are dumb: they just look for what you ask them to look for.  You are trying to anticipate what terms people use about your topic.  You learn as you search which terms are best to use.

• Use quotation marks around phrases
• Use an asterisk (*) to search for variable word endings
• Use Boolean search statements
• If you want to search the Web, set the Select a source option box to Search the World Wide Web only

The whole search statement is "medical malpractice" AND case* AND "medical personnel" 

You are telling Northern Light that you want every Web page in its database that has the phrase medical malpractice searched out and put in one set, set A; then every Web page that has the word case or cases put in another set, set B; then every Web page that has the phrase medical personnel put into another set, set C.  And then you want Northern Light to give you a list of results where the terms overlap: Set A AND Set B AND Set C.

The results are sorted into folders -- a very handy feature!!

The URL for this page is http://www.cabrillo.cc.ca.us/~tsmalley/MedAssist1.html

Topsy N. Smalley
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