One of the most frustrating parts of doing research on the internet is using the search engines. Most people spend much more time than necessary attempting to find what they are interested in. Using a few simple guide lines can make the difference. The following are the guide lines as set forth by the Alta-Vista search engine.

	Type text in these formats when you use Search, Power Search, Image Search, MP3/Audio Search, Video Search, and Entertainment Search.
	whistlers mother Finds documents that contain either whistlers or mother or any capitalized variant (Whistlers, WHISTLERS, MoTHER, Mother). AltaVista ranks the results to show first the documents containing both words, close together, and near the top of the document. Whistlers Mother Finds documents that have either Whistlers or Mother but not any other capitalized variation. When you use a capitalized word, AltaVista assumes that you are only interested in an exact match. +whistlers +mother Finds only documents that contain both words. Be sure there is no space between the plus sign and the word. +whistlers mother All documents found must contain whistlers or any capitalized variant. Documents that contain mother are ranked higher in the list than documents that do not contain mother. "Whistlers Mother" Finds documents that have the two words capitalized and found right next to each other. Placing quotation marks around any series of words turns them into a phrase and tells AltaVista that you are only interested in documents that have the words in this specific order. +"Whistlers Mother" -Louvre Finds documents that contain the phrase "Whistlers Mother" but do not contain the word "Louvre". Try recipe cookie +chocolate - chips to find recipes for chocolate cookies without chips. + Whistlers +Mothe* Finds documents that contain Whistlers and any word starting with Lis. Use an asterisk when you're not sure how a word is spelled or to find variations of the word: Try big* to find bigger, biggest, bigwig. Enter bicycle* to find singular and plural forms. Use an asterisk at the end or in the middle of words. AltaVista ignores an asterisk at the beginning of a word.
	Improving Your Search Results
	Use the form in Power Search for a while until you gain search experience. The form makes it easy for you to limit the results in many ways. At a Search results page, change your search query and check the box next to Search These Results to search just the pages returned by your initial search. If your search finds too many pages, enter several words likely to appear on pages that discuss the material you are looking for. Pages that contain all the words you enter are listed higher in the list. For example, enter cat kitten pet to get a more useful list of pages that discuss domestic cats. Enter more specific or less common words. For example, instead of entering horse, enter mare stallion colt filly. Enter phrases (words within quotation marks). AltaVista stores the entire text of Web pages, so it can find the exact sequence of words you enter. If your search finds too few pages, enter fewer or more general words or use the asterisk to find plurals as well as singular forms of the word or some other grammatical variations. For example, enter bicycle* to find both bicycle and bicycles. Phrase your search as a question if that is most natural for you. Example: Where can I find a schedule for women's basketball? Use lowercase text in your searches. When you use lowercase, the search finds documents containing the words regardless of case (both uppercase and lowercase results). When you use uppercase text, the search finds only documents that contain the word capitalized as you have typed it. Example:Type ohio, and you'll find Ohio, ohio, OHIO. Type Ohio, and you'll find only Ohio. Use special characters and punctuation to create phrases or phone numbers. AltaVista interprets punctuation (including hyphens, commas, periods, colons, or semicolons) as separators for words. Placing punctuation or a special character between each word (with no spaces between the characters and the words) is one way to indicate a phrase. Search for numbers; for example 1-800-555-1212. Example: Entering Jean-Luc Picard is easier than entering "Jean Luc" Picard, which is acceptable, but requires more keystrokes. Be aware that words with hyphens like e-mail or e-commerce are different from words without hyphens (email or ecommerce). Enter e-mail and AltaVista will find pages with e-mail or E-mail. To also find email or Email, enter e-mail email. Limit the search by language.Use the Language menu to find all the documents on the Web about a given topic, written only in the language you specify. This type of search excludes Web sites written in any other language. Example: Type escargot and select French in the language menu to see only pages written in French that include the word escargot. NOTES: Limiting by language is available for Web page searches only. If the Family Filter is turned on, you can search only in English. Turn the Family Filter off to see and use the language menu. Use special commands to search parts of a Web page; for example, just the title or just the URL.