The Principle of Onions

I've blogged a reference to Tara Calishain's new book Web Search Garage before (see Seven Ways to Save Time Searching). On the promotional web site for the book, Ms. Calishain offers some free content, including a chapter from the book called "The Principle of Onions." In essence, here's the principle:

When searching, it’s better to start with very specific search queries and then get more and more general. If you start with more general queries you will tend to get overwhelmed with results.

The entire chapter (6pp) is free and should be *required* reading for people interested in improving the information they find on the internet and in reducing the amount of time they spend searching. I'm going to be ordering the book!