2. Research with Google?
• Students, teachers, staff—we all use Google
– Teachers are overheard telling students: “just Google it”
• Students are required to use resources from subscription
databases.
– Subscription services are more authoritative, valid, easier to use,
and easier to cite.
• But we also Google—either as a start, or to check that
something obvious wasn’t missed
• Google is incredibly powerful
• So let’s get better at Googling!
2
3. Today’s Goals
• Learn how to use Google better.
– Google Advanced
– Key Words, Key Phrases
– Google Scholar
• Discover Google shortcuts and neat
“things”
3
4. Keep in mind: The Invisible Web
Google doesn’t search everything…
• What search engines choose not to index
– “The Invisible Web: Text pages, files, or other often high-quality authoritative
information available via the World Wide Web that general-purpose search
engines cannot, due to technical limitations, or will not, due to deliberate choice,
add to their indices of Web pages. Sometimes also referred to as the “deep Web”
or “dark matter…what may be invisible today may suddenly become visible
tomorrow.”
– “If a Web page has no links pointing to it from any other page on the Web, a
search engine crawler can’t find it. These “disconnected” pages are the most
basic part of the Invisible Web.” Sherman, Chris and Gary Price, In Library Trends 52 (2) 2003: Organizing the
Internet: 282-298
– “In fact, only a small percentage of the Web’s content is accessible to Google.
The term “deep Web” refers to the vast portion of the Web that is beyond the
reach of the typical “surface Web” crawlers. Surface Web search engines like
Google can’t easily fathom the deep Web because most deep Web content has
no links to it.” Sol Lederman, altsearchengine.com, 2009.
4
5. So let’s find a typical
assignment for a young student
“find out what bottlenose
dolphins eat”
(This is my part of the report)
5
21. 28,200,000 – 128,000 = 28,072,000
FEWER HITS
But still too many!
More results, more focused
21
22. Further refine your results
by choosing a domain . . .
.com commercial sites
.org organizations
.edu educational sites
.gov government sites
.net computer network
.mil military
Note: a ~ in the URL indicates a personal page, so take heed
22
30. We had 4
authoritative
appropriate
useful
websites
on the first page
While we had two good results with earlier searches,
We did not have enough to compare and verify the information…
Now we do
30
32. Recap
• Eliminate the “s”
• Use Boolean logic to narrow the topic
• Use the Advanced Search feature
• Choose keywords to include & exclude
• Select a domain
32
33. Tips when Google Searching
• Search is always case insensitive
• Generally, punctuation is ignored,
including @#$%^&*()=+[] and other
special characters.
• Keep it simple.
• As few terms as possible
33
34. New Google Search String
In the Google search box:
filetype:pdf migration intitle:distance of "monarch butterfl*”
This says that I am search for:
• A pdf type file
• About migration
• In the title has to be the word distant
• It needs to have the exact phrase monarch butterfly or
monarch butterflies
34
38. Another specific search
Add Region,
Domain, Language,
Date, Site
(youtube.com,
teachertube.com)
38
39. Results
II needed good
information
originating in
Afghanistan about
the education of
girls
39
40. Recap
• Use Advanced Search for file
type .ppt, .xls, .pdf
• Use the site or domain name, i.e.,
teachertube.com, yale.edu, .gov, ms.org
• Limit by date, region, language, usage
rights
40
48. Copyright
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United
States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street,
Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.
48