Information has been recognized as the cornerstone of our age, and today, there is simply no excuse for not having the right kind of information. This is because of the advent of that vast interlinked network of computers, the internet, into our daily lives.

Thus, while, even a few years ago, doing a research project meant spending tedious hours pouring through journals and books in a musty library, today, it simply means going to your nearest internet centre, and plucking out the required information, as almost everything can be found on the net today! It is not just researchers who benefit, as everyone can take advantage of this vast pool of information that is available at one's fingertips, literally, at that!

However, there are millions of websites on the internet, and it is impossible to know where to start looking - impossible, that is, unless one uses a search engine. A search engine is, in simple words, a website providing a list of other websites that contain the information you desire, based on keywords that you specify. So, if you are looking for information on Dawn, all you have to do is go to a search engine, and type in "Dawn".

The problem that arises here is that you will get a list of every website that has the words "Dawn" in them (3,860,000, to be precise!). So, you might find an article on the Indus valley civilization titled "The Dawn of Mankind", or you might find information on a painting called "Mountains in the Dawn", and so on! Therefore, a better option is to key in the following search terms: "Dawn, newspaper, Pakistan." This will bring you the result http://www.dawn.com, which is the official website of Dawn.

The first option is to choose which search engine to use. In this regard, there is a clear winner - Google - which has been voted numerous times as the best search engine on the net. To access this, simply type http://www.google.com into your web browser. Other good search engines are Altavista, accessible at URL http://www.altavista.com and AllTheWeb, addressed at http://www.alltheweb.com. For Pakistan-specific information, a good search engine is http://pakistan.asiaco.com.

Once you get to the search engine, you have to specify your search parameters, or "keywords." These have to be chosen with care, because what a search engine does is simply look for web pages that contain those exact words you typed in, down to the same spelling. Thus, if you search for "Shoaib Akthar", you will get a different result than if you had searched for "Shoaib Akhtar"! (italics for emphasis) So, be very careful, when typing in your keywords.

Also, if you are looking for a phrase, or a name, or anything else where the words follow a sequence, then you will get more specific and relevant matches if you put the phrase in quotes. To illustrate, a search on Google for "Lever Brothers" might throw up sites that have the following lines- "The Wright Brothers managed to lever their technical skills into a profitable business."

On the other hand, if you had put those two words in quotes, as "Lever Brothers", you would only get pages that contain the mentioned two words in that exact order. Thereby, you would get a list of pages that refer to the consumer products giant.

If you want to find out their financial results, you can search further, and enter "Lever Brothers" "Financial Results." Note the use of the quotes.

If you want to search some more, say, for the last year's results, just type "Lever Brothers" "Financial results" 2001 Pakistan. You don't have to put quotes for Pakistan or 2001, as you want all pages where those words appear, irrespective of sequence.

Another invaluable tip on search engines is the cache. A cache can be explained in terms of a photographic record of the contents of a web page that was accessed some time ago. What the search engine effectively does, is take a snapshot of the contents of the page, and then store it. This is invaluable, if the site is regularly updated, and information that was there last week has been replaced by other content. When you search on Google, each result has a small link at the bottom, titled Cached. This is the page that the search engine has accessed, and displayed.

For instance, if a newspaper article is cached, then clicking on the main link will only take you to the present day's edition of the paper, which will not have anything on the subject. However, if you click on the cache, it will show you a photo of the search result it got at the time it found it, and you can access the article this way. This is particularly useful for researchers, who often find that a particular page does not exist any more, because it has been altered or removed totally.

To conclude, it is useful to remember that no single search engine can claim to cover the entire internet, so it is always a good idea to use two or three different search engines. This will ensure a greater range of results, and is more likely to produce the information you desire.