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Those of you who are familiar with Wikipedia will know just how helpful it can be when you are trying to quickly find out about a particular topic, but did you know there may be an even better way to find what you are looking for on Wikipedia than the search box that appears on the site?

There are in fact a number of search engines dedicated to helping you better search Wikipedia. One site you might find useful is Powerset.

With Powerset you can search for keywords and short phrases or you can simply type in a questions and where possible Powerset will answer it using text from Wikipedia. When you search for a person, place, or thing Powerset will bring up a short description of what you have searched as well as a list of facts from Wikipedia about your search term. If you want to know more information than this you can click on ‘Read enhanced Wikipedia Article’ and Powerset will display the Wikipedia article with a number of features that make finding what you need much easier.

These features include:

  1. An Article Outline box- This box displays the headings and subheadings of the article, which you can click on to skip to. This is similar to the content box seen on the Wikipedia site, but what’s different is that as you scroll down the article the outline box moves with you down the left-hand side of the page, so you always have easy access to it. The Article Outline box also has a handy search feature which allows you to easily search for a term within the article.
  2. The Show Factz feature – At the bottom of the Article Outline box there is a ‘Show Factz’ button. With this feature the outline box will display not only the outline but also the main facts within each section. This is a great way to quickly scan through all the information on the page.
  3. A Factz word cloud – By clicking the Factz button at the top of the page Powerset will display a word cloud of what the main facts within the article are about. You can then simply scan this word cloud and click on words that you are looking for to find the relevant information.

Here is what the word cloud for the Wikipedia entry on Auckland looks like.

To watch a video demonstration of how Powerset works click here or to visit the Powerset site click here.

If you would like to learn more about Wikipedia itself click here.