Little Bo Peep

Little Bo PeepLittle BO Peep has lost her sheep, and doesn’t know

where to find them.Poor Little Bo PeepBut at least Little Bo Peep:- Knew what a sheep looked like- Knew how many sheep she was looking for- Probably knew where she had last seen them- Where the sheep were likely to have roamed to- That when she found them she would know that she

really had found them

Searching WWW

address

address ???

Searching WWWWhen searching for relevant information on the WWW:

• You don’t know what its going to look like

• You don’t know how much there will be

• You won’t know when you have found enough

• You probably don’t even know where to look, although you might have seen some of it somewhere before.

• The information you need may be on a website you haven’t seen before, and even when you have found it you might still be unsure whether it’s the right information or not

Once upon a time…

Once upon a time…Consider Jane, a typical yoga teacher, planning a lesson. Jane’s

class have been working towards the dog, and Jane can see that not all students will be able to do the full asana

• One has weak wrists

• Another has blood pressure problems which make head down postures difficult.

Jane wants some inspiration for alternatives which will keep the less able interested and developing, and gain the same benefits as the others get from the dog.

What not to do:

http://any.engine.com

alternatives to dog

address

What not to do:• What Jane shouldn’t do is go to their default

search engine

• and type ‘alternatives to dog’ into the search field.

• The result will be more ‘hits’ (ie resulting finds) than you can usefully use, with any relevant finds hidden by the bulk.

Results:

Web matches: 1- 10 of 1,030,000next 10

1. Alt. Dog breeds xyxy2. Dog food options xyxy

Results:

• ‘alternatives to dog’ will give you too many results to make it very likely you will find just what you want.

To improve your search:

Right place

Right thing

Wrong way

To improve your search:

Right place

Right thing

Right way

To improve your search:• Three things you need to do to improve your search

• Search in the right place – you need to develop some feeling for which websites are most likely to provide information on the sort of things you look for, in a format that you can use. We will look at a few of the right places to look shortly.

• Search for the right thing – be clear about how you describe the thing your looking for. We will go onto look at some examples of how what you think you have described is interpreted differently by search engines, and of how you can define it more accurately.

• Search in the right way

To improve your search:

• Right place

• Right thing

• Right way

Look in the right place

Yoga schools eg BWY, aYs

Enthusiastic yogis –

teachers, or students

Medical eg Medline, Medem

Commercial, eg online mat or

clothing shops, publications

Academic eg Newcastle,

Pennysylvania

Look in the right placeOne key rule is to think about how you would have found this information without the WWW.

• If you would have approached the British Wheel of Yoga for advice on training requirements, don’t start by using Microsoft’s default search engine – look at the BWY website.

• If you would have used a medical encyclopaedia to look at some medical details, find medical site such as Medline or the medical library on Medem.com.

• Perhaps you would have asked other yoga teachers or students that you know, or meet at training days – now you have access to a wide community of yoga enthusiasts who want to share with you what they think about yoga.

• Think also about the sort of information that you might find in publications, eg Yoga Journal covers asana, business practice, meditation, philosophy, research. Purpose of such sites may be to get you to subscribe to the paper journal, but as a result there is an enormous amount of information available.

• If you are interested in research, can look at what universities are doing. In general I’ve had more success with US universities such as University of Pennsylvania - www.upenn.edu but also anatomy UK eg ncl.ac.uk

Bookmark

Bookmark• Once you have found some useful sites for

the sort of searches you tend to do, bookmark them in your favourites list. If you’re not always at the same PC, keep a note in the back of a diary of useful websites. Even better for the more experienced among you, produce a simple webpage, accessible from anywhere, providing links to you favourite sites.

Look for the right thing

‘White and fluffy’

Look for the right thing

Unless Bo Peep defines what she is looking for, won’t find it –

white fluffy, rules out pigs, but doesn’t narrow it sufficiently to a sheep - may find a cloud

Need to consider ‘ewe’ ‘lamb’ ‘ram’

Look for the right thing

Look for the right thing• So you need to be clear what you are looking for. First, what

type of information do you want? Are you looking for:• If you are looking for pictures, are you looking for

photographs (tend to be .jpg) or stickmen (tend to be .gif)?• If you are looking for instructions, do you want to know how

to do the perfect posture, or to do a modification?• If you want to find some research, are you interested in the

effectiveness of yoga generally, or a specific aspect such as meditation or pranayama?

The right way: Where am I looking?

The right way: Where am I looking?

• Individual website

• Associated websites

• UK websites

• World

Navigation v Keyword searches

Navigation v Keyword searches

Consider:• Navigation – where you use menus and click on options

to find what you want – a bit like choosing between two or more roads at each junction you get to

• Searching – where you type in one or more words and you receive a list of places where those words occur – like being given a list of towns and cities that ‘High Street’ exists in, without knowing how to get there.

The right way: Navigation

www.yogajournal.com

The right way: Navigation• Lets go back to our problem of finding alternatives

and suitable modifications for Dog pose.

• Go to www.yogajournal.com – search for ‘dog’. Get a list of results – would eventully find the ‘right’ things by clicking on each of these, but most useful information is found by selecting– poses– Adho Mukha Svanasana / Downward-Facing Dog

Look for the right thing

What do you think the search engine does?

Yoga and breathing

Look for the right thing• What do you think the search engine does?

• Offer choices

– Phrase

– Only things with both words in

– All things with either word in

What does it look for?

• ‘yoga and breathing’

• ‘yoga’ AND ‘breathing’

• ‘yoga’ OR ‘breathing ’ Probably too many

lots

some

What does it look for?• Need to explain the difference between each of

these:• ‘yoga and breathing’– ie looks for this as an exact

phrase• ‘yoga’ AND ‘breathing’– looks for any occurrences

of ‘breathing’ and ‘yoga’ on same page. Ie both words must be present but not necessarily in context.

• ‘yoga’ OR ‘breathing’– looks for ‘yoga’ or ‘breathing’ – ie if either word occurs this will be presented as a finding

There is lots of information on yoga and breathing on the Web. Medical conditions your yoga students may have can be investigated on Medline. Yoga postures are well covered on the www.yogabasics.com. www.yogajournal.com covers yoga postures and breathing.

Yoga and breathing

All the words

In general search engines

• Look first for all the words

There is lots of information on yoga and breathing on the Web. Medical conditions your yoga students may have can be investigated on Medline. Yoga postures are well covered on the www.yogabasics.com. www.yogajournal.com covers yoga postures and breathing.

Yoga and breathing

One or more words

• Then for one or more words, often ignoring ‘and’, ‘or’ ‘the’, ‘in’, ‘a’, ‘at’ etc

• Give priority to first words in this case ‘yoga’

There is lots of information on yoga and breathing on the Web. Medical conditions your yoga students may have can be investigated on Medline. Yoga postures are well covered on the www.yogabasics.com. www.yogajournal.com covers yoga postures and breathing.

Yoga and breathing

Ranking in searches

• Rank pages

– with the words in the title

– near the top of the page

– or on the page several times

of higher relevance

I want it all

• pranayama AND breathing X

• yoga AND breathing

• yoga AND stress

• dog AND Adho Mukha Svanasana X

I want it all• Remember that using AND actually reduces the

number of searches. It is a very common error when using Boolean logic for people to add extra words in the hope of finding more hits – that only works if the words are ‘OR’ed – ANDing words will reduce the number of hits.

• Don’t use for synonyms, as screen out articles which hve used only ones term – for these see OR

One or the other

• breathing OR yoga X

• breathing OR pranayama

• dog OR Adho Mukha Svanasana

One or the other

OR tells the search engine you don’t mind which term you find – one or the other or both will be fine.

So, for example, • Useful for finding a posture when it might use the sanskrit

or the English name – although might need to ‘AND’ dog with ‘yoga’ if on a non-yoga site.

• Or to find something on pranayama which might simply be referred to as breathing on some sites

• not very useful to look for breathing OR yoga as you will get information about breathing unconnected with yoga, and on many other aspects of yoga

AND reduces hits

OR increases hits

AND or OR

• In the way we use English, we think AND adds – I need to buy apples AND pears. But when searching, AND reduces the number of things you find. Similarly, OR means you want all the sites with either word in, and thereby increases ‘hits’

www.google.co.uk

http://search.msn.com

Advanced search

Advanced search

• If you want to use Boolean searches you may first need to check that it works in the way you expect

• some simple search boxes on websites will treat ‘OR’ as the word ‘or’ not as the operator OR.

• The safest way to be sure is to find an advanced search dialogue (if the site has one) which enables you to be explicit in your use of OR / AND/ NOT

Look in the right place:

• Where would I find the information without the web?

• Use general search engines to find a yoga site, then navigate

• Bookmark useful websites

Look for the right thing:

• Be clear about what you are looking for

• Think synonyms

Look in the right way

• Know where you are looking

• Test a site’s navigation before resorting to keyword searches

• Understand how a site’s search engine works

• Use advanced search if you’re not getting what you want

Look in the right way• The web is not a replacement for yoga

practice

• Just with advice gained on a yoga training day or at your class, you’ll still need of course to check everything you read against your own experience and practice.