Abstract
A comparative study of information retrieval from the Internet was pursued by adopting a specific search topic “apoptosis.” The search engines and databases used were those without a service charge. The search process was examined from a sensible perspective. One hundred and forty-five records were retrieved from Lycos and 490 from Open Text. Those two were fairly comprehensive search tools. EINet and Galaxy provided six and 14 records and were not as comprehensive tools as Lycos and Open Text. As far as scientific articles were concerned, UnCover was superior to the others. Yahoo provided no record. It served as a guide, however, to other relevant sources. The Internet provides access to a vast collection of mixed information and data. One gets lost quite easily and it is necessary to “surf” skillfully and smoothly in order to reach the target of one's own search. A sensible perspective was used for the introductory search of the Internet. This sensible approach was represented in the form of a flow chart; by following the chart one can “surf” safely and effectively so as to reach the destination of the search with an optimum result.
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