Find a Statute by Its Popular Name, or Finding the Interstate Commerce Act Go to the links for this article. A visitor to The Virtual Chase writes: "I [am] looking for [the] Interstate Commerce Act, [but] almost all web-sites [lead] me to Thomas or ... [to] the Library of Congress.... [E]very time I launch [a] search after entering Interstate Commerce Act or "Interstate Commerce Act" in the keyword field[,] the engine [leads] me to dozens of thousands [of] links and documents. Apparently my command demands all the documents that have this phrase within. How can I get something that is [en]titled Interstate Commerce Act, but not everything that includes the phrase? missing pulse missing pulse What [am] I do[ing] wrong?" Dear visitor, it appears your frustration results from attempting to use a search engine like a database. A database presents an orderly means for storing information. It defines data (e.g., author, title, subject) and identifies relationships (e.g., query a database for all opinions by a certain judge). Search engines are not databases. They simply collect partial data about the Web pages they find. Mostly, they do not define the data (i.e., recognize it as author, title, subject), nor do they identify data relationships. While many of the popular search engines index and identify titles, the term refers to the title given a specific Web finding that missing someone missing pulse page, which may not equate to the title of a statute, book or article. This Web page, for example, displays the title, "How To ... Do It with Research!" A search engine will index its title as such even though the actual title of the document is "Find a Statute by Its Popular Name, or Finding the Interstate Commerce Act." A search engine cannot understand this subtle difference. A potentially productive research strategy begins with the identification of possible sources of information. You seek the Interstate Commerce Act, a federal statute. You want the United States Code, or possibly, the Web site of the federal agency that is missing a period missing pulse responsible for implementing
