LYCOS is probably the most efficient "search engine" available with NETSCAPE. A "search engine" is a program (e.g. LYCOS) which will search through the Wide World Web looking for information related to "search arguments" that, you, as a User give to the search engine.

However, because there is so much information within NETSCAPE, LYCOS usually returns too much information and some of the information is not related. This can cause you to become frustrated with the Internet.

However, you can "focus" your searching using LYCOS through the LYCOS query capability. The following example searches for information related to Crime in Japan.

• If you use the "normal" default search arguments and enter "Japan Crime", you will be returned too much information about Japan and about Crime.
• You will be returned information about Crime and Japan in World War II and before World War II. That is very interesting but it doesn't help you search for information related to Crime in Japan, today.
• The search will not be related.

If you study the following example, you will see that LYCOS was able to focus much more clearly on what you really wanted.

• LYCOS will allow you to change the "default" search of "OR" to "AND".
• This means that you can combine a group of words together to "focus" your search and LYCOS will only return locations in the Internet that contain all of these words.
• Instead of only searching on the word "crime" or the word "Japan", we are combining related words that have something to do with crime in Japan today.
• This is only an example but when you work on your topics, you need to think about combining different "key words" together when doing your searches. This will make the searches go faster and be more efficient.
• The instructor has sent by e-mail suggestions on searching your topics to all members of all classes. You should try to use these "search arguments" with LYCOS. Of course, you can think of your own "search arguments", too.
• In the following example, we have changed the LYCOS search to look for the following "and" related words which all have to do with crime and Japan.

The following are snapshots of the search undertaken by LYCOS to locate relevant and useful addresses.

1. In order to use the LYCOS search routines, you need to point to the LYCOS search argument page:
   URL -->"http://www.lycos.com/lycos-form.html"<--.
   You should keep this page in your Bookmarks so you can go to it easily.
2. You need to change the Query information to point to "crime japanese japan aum shinrikyo safe" as shown in Example 1.
3. Then you need to change Search Options: to match all terms [AND] and strong match as shown in Example 1.
4. You need to change Display options: to detailed results as shown in Example 1.
5. After you entered your query search arguments, hit the SEARCH key as shown in . Example 1.
6. The following(Example 1) shows an example of this in Lycos. This will cause Lycos to search for locations in the Internet that contain combinations of the Query information words. For example, locations that have combinations of "crime and japanese" or of "aum shinrikyo and safe" etc. will be returned to you. There are 6 words in the query "crime japanese japan aum shinrikyo safe". Lycos will return many locations..too many, in fact. But, Lycos will list the locations with the best matches first. Please study the following and print it so you can study. This information will help make your "search time" on the Internet more effective and quicker.

Example 1

Start Search in LYCOS with this argument

Lycos search on "crime, japanese, japan , aum, shinrikyo, safe" has returned 94,772 documents with these words. However, Lycos will organize this list of 94,772 documents in a logical order. The documents with the most combinations of these terms will be listed first. You NEVER have to read all of the documents. Lycos will ask you to "refine your search". You do not need to do anything except hit the Search key (Example 2).

Example 2

Start Search in LYCOS with this argument

Lycos returns addresses pointing to "generally relevant" locations on the Web. The following 2 locations (Example 3) certainly appear to contain relevant information about the Search items. Item 1 discusses "religion in Japan and Aum Shinrikyo"; item 2 discusses the question "Is Japan Safe..Part 2". Both of these locations contain 4 of the 6 search terms (90%, 4 of 6 terms relevant). This means that somewhere within these pages four (4) of the search items "japanese japan aum shinrikyo safe" were found.

Example 3

Start Search in LYCOS with this argument

Items 3 and 4 that were found through the search (Example 4 ) also contain 4 of the 6 terms and seem to contain relevant information related to "japanese japan aum shinrikyo safe".

Example 4

Start Search in LYCOS with this argument

Items 8 and 9 contains 3 of 6 terms used in the query search of "japanese japan aum shinrikyo safe" (Example 5) . You should notice that the 1st 10-20 returned items by LYCOS usually will contain the most useful types of information.

Example 5

Start Search in LYCOS with this argument