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Reference
resources
© 2010 Max Lent
Alphabet
General Reference Resources
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AcademicInfo.net. "With designs to guide both aspiring students
on the advantages and avenues to researching and searching for
educational tinged information, AcademicInfo was created in 1998 by
Michael Madin.
Bearing witness to the lack of authoritative
educational internet resources, while a student of comparative
religion at the University of Washington, Mike believed an alternative
to Google was needed for those thirsting for subject area specific
information.
AcademicInfo, while still some way off Mike's
initial vision aims to cover all aspects of online and distance
education. From Accreditation, Test Preparation to guides on
respective subject areas, AcademicInfo will also provide current and
aspiring students with a myriad of degree and courses for those
looking to enhance their professional credential as well as those
seeking personal development.
For more on Mike's take on online
educational resources, read his
blog
The
educational spectrum is vast and multifaceted so acting as a conduit,
AcademicInfo is able to bring together the best educational
institutions and programs they offer directly to you."
Comment: The subject guide area is amazingly useful.
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HotSheet.com. It
is hard to tell whether HotSheet.com or Refdesk.com has more links.
Both deserve to be listed in your browser's favorites or bookmark
lists.
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Refdesk.com. This
site breaks every Web design rule there is and as a result is one of
the most useful quick reference sites on the Web. If you need to
look up a fact fast go to Refdesk.com. If you need to search for
something on the Web use a search tool like
Google.
Dictionaries
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Onelook.com.
"Think of this web site as a search engine for words and phrases: If
you have a word for which you'd like a definition or translation,
we'll quickly shuttle you to the web-based dictionaries that define or
translate that word. If you don't know how to spell the word, we'll
help you do that too. No word is too obscure: More than 5 million
words in more than 900 online dictionaries are indexed by the OneLook®
search engine." Since Onelook.com covers virtually all online
dictionaries there's not much reason for looking elsewhere.
Search engines
- About.com. Not really a search
engine, but a portal to a collection of Web sites run on a wide range
of topics.
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AllTheWeb or
Fast Search. Fast is a
key word. The response rate is nearly instantaneous.
- AltaVista. The
translation service, the ability to search for images, and the content
makes this one of my preferences when I am searching for hard to find
Web sites.
- Ask Jeeves. A natural
language search engine.
- Dogpile. "Dogpile uses
innovative metasearch technology to search the Internet's top search
engines, including Google, Yahoo, AltaVista, Ask Jeeves, About, FAST,
FindWhat, LookSmart, and many more."
- Excite. I use excite as
my Web homepage because I like the customization offered.
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Google.com. The
best search engine on the Web. However, recent reports state
that the best search engines search less than 20% and perhaps as low
as 10% of the Web sites published. If you encounter foreign
language references use the translate option.
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Highbeam.com.
"HighBeam™ Research, LLC runs an online research engine for
individuals, filling the gap between free search engines and high-end
research services. By delivering sophisticated research tools with
convenient access to the free Web, paid online services and our
proprietary databases, we empower individual researchers to
efficiently locate, organize and deliver answers. The HighBeam
Research Engine is located at
www.highbeam.com. HighBeam Research (formerly Alacritude, LLC) is
headquartered in Chicago and has additional operations in
Philadelphia."
- HotBot. An old timer by
Web standards and once my first choice.
- Lycos. News, images, and sound
searching.
- Metor. This is a meta
search engine.
- MSN Search. Microsoft's
search engine.
- Northern Light Search.
A favorite of many of my colleagues.
- SearchEdu.com.
Searches educational Web sites.
- SearchGov.com.
Searches government Web sites.
- SearchMil.com.
Searches military Web sites.
- Study Web. If you need
encyclopedic information or if you are helping students, send them to
this site.
- Teoma. Use the results,
refine, and resources tools together and the search engine becomes
more useful.
- Turbo10. "The Deep Net
consists of a vast array of information contained in specialist
databases from business associations, universities, libraries, and
government departments. A good example of a Deep Net resource is
AustLII - the Australasian Legal Information Institute (
http://www.austlii.org ). AustLII
is one of the largest sources of Australasian legal materials on the
Net, with over seven gigabytes of raw text materials and over 1.5
million searchable legal documents."
- Vivísimo. "Our
breakthrough technology automatically categorizes textual information
into crisp, meaningful, hierarchically sorted category folders. This
unique technology differs from other classification techniques in that
it is fully automated, requires no maintenance, and achieves
high-quality results on any type of textual content with little or no
customization."
- WebCrawler. A search
engine of search engines.
- WebWombat.com. An
Australian search engine.
- WiseNut. Listings are
fee-based and free. A product of
LookSmart.com.
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Yahoo.com.
Best human classified topic oriented search engine.
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ZapMeta.com.
"ZapMeta is a meta-search engine, a search tool that provide users the
ability of simultaneously search multiple search engines under one
interface. Meta-search engines benefit users by saving them time and
effort from having to individually visit multiple search engines in
order to find the desired result. Along with web search, ZapMeta
currently offer a directory based on data from The Open Directory
Project and Product Search powered by Pricegrabber."
Search engine directories
Telephone directories online
Google
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Google works
very well as phone book. Try using these conventions:
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phonebook: first name last name city
state
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use rphonebook: to search residential only listings
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use bphonebook: to search business listings
National
Rochester, NY
Hoaxes and urban legends
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Truthorfiction.com. This site has an easy to use interface
with nearly all of the current hoaxes and urban legends listed.
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