Google Search Pro

Teach Them How To Fish Well

@joe_edtech

I would love to tell you that when you ask your students to do research the first thing they are going to do is to log into your Library web page and utilize the incredibly content rich subscription databases that you've spent so much time and money curating. But they won't. The data we have on staff and students alike suggests that both groups heavily utilize those sites when they are specifically directed to do so, and almost always turn to Google Search when they are on their own.

So, instead of beating your head against the wall trying to convince them to use the subscription sites you've purchased, teach them how to live in their world a little bit more efficiently - teach them how to fish well with Google.

I teach my students that they have three opportunities to utilize the advanced features in Google search. They can use "search operators" in the actual search bar, they can click the "Search Tools" button after their initial search, or they can actually navigate to Google's custom made "Advanced Search" toolkit.

First, if you've grown up with Boolean searches, you'll be familiar with some of the Google special character search operators, but here are some of my favorites:

Operator	Example	What does it do?
“”	“digital copyright law”	If you put your search terms inside quotation marks, Google won’t search for topics. It will search for exact character matches. In this case it will only return searches that contain the phrase “digital copyright law” exactly as it is written.
“”	“The” Onion	You can also use quotation marks to force Google to include words it would not normally include in a search. “The” is a word Google would exclude, but if you are looking for the important news magazine listed here, you will want to include “The.”
-	big bang theory -show	Adding the minus sign removes terms from your search. In this example, we are actually looking for info on The Big Bang, not the TV Show.
filetype:	travel guide filetype:pdf	This returns a specific type of file. In this case we’ll only get PDF Travel Guides.
:(domain)	stars:nova.com	In this case I’m searching a specific domain. We’ll only get searches from the PBS Nova site.
*	Star Wars * my life	* acts as a wild card. In this case, Google will search for things that match the phrase and it will fill in appropriate words (is, changed, made)
~	~exhausted	~ in front of a word will tell Google you want to search for the word and similar words (tired, tuckered out, etc.)

Secondly, once you entered your initial search terms, you can hit the "Search Tools" button and make your search far more specific:

It is great and useful to search by time and location, but my favorite variable there is under "All results." You can choose sites by reading level. Unlike similar searches in Office products, this won't give you Lexile reading scores, but it will give you the number of results that are Basic, Intermediate, or Advanced reading levels.

Thirdly, if you really want to make your search specific, start the process by navigating to Google's Advanced Search. There you can fill out a form that allows you to put all of the relavent search terms into it and then narrow your search by things like file type, language, or even usage rights.

----------------------------------------------------------------

If you'd like to access my Advanced Search Guide, click here.