 Goals:  Decrease number of search results  Increase number of relevant results  Method:  Use any of several search tips and commands  Search engines vary in terms of the commands they support

 Use several search terms, not one  ‘Easter bunny origin’ not ‘Easter’ or ‘Easter bunny’  Be specific  ‘dog training,’ not ‘animal training’  Use synonyms to get more results  ‘losing,’ ‘lose,’ ‘reduce,’ ‘reduction’  Use lower case, unless case is important (e.g., NeXT Software)

 “Search engine math”  Basic tips to improve your search  Field searching  Search for terms within specific parts of the document (e.g., title)  Boolean and other advanced commands (e.g., AND, OR)  Search assistance and display features  Features of the engines, themselves

 Include term (+)  To ensure word is included in search e.g., +camping +Arkansas  Exclude term (-)  find pages that have one word on them, but not another word e.g., +apples -computer  Phrase (“_”) e.g., “social psychology”

 Match any term  Automatic at most (see handout)  Match all terms  Use + or menu; automatic at some  Truncation/Wildcard (*)  To find all forms of a word  archaeolog* (-y, -ical, -ist)  Stemming: finds all forms based on the stem automatically

 Title search -- to search for words w/in titles of web pages e.g., +title:elephant +species  Site search -- to search w/in documents on a specific site e.g., domain:memphis.edu psychology  URL search -- to search within the text of URLs e.g., url:memphis.edu

 Link search -- to search for pages that link to a particular page or domain e.g., link:psyc.memphis.edu/students/../  Limit by language  Search for documents in a particular language  Limit by date pages were created or modified

 AND returns pages containing all search terms joined by AND e.g., Mars AND planet AND life  OR returns pages containing any or all search terms joined by OR e.g., “bed and breakfast” or inn  NOT returns pages containing the first but not the second term e.g., clinton NOT lewinsky

 NEAR returns pages containing keywords near each other on the page e.g., psychology NEAR history (distance can be specified in LY & WC)  Nesting Boolean commands provides for complex queries e.g., psychology AND (social OR cognitive)... If no parentheses... (psychology AND social) OR cognitive

 Examples:  (cat* OR feline*) AND “endangered species”  +title:psychology +dream* -Freud*  “star trek” -voyager -“deep space nine” -“next generation”  Works only if search engine supports each command, obviously

 Related Searches  Search engine provides related searches after a search is complete  Find Similar  Provides ability to find other pages that seem similar to those you like  Search Within  Do a second search within results already generated

 Ability to sort results by date (created or modified), with most recent documents listed first  Some search engines display the date page was created or modified * Note: dates can be unreliable (gotten from server)  Ability to increase the number of results that are displayed

 For academic searches, it is best to NOT use sites such as Wikipedia.  A wiki is a type of webpage that can be edited by anyone, making the information unreliable It is best to use.edu,.gov, or.org domains

 Advanced Google search  File type  Search within a specific domain  Google Scholar

 “The Google Game” Retrieved from:webpages.maine207.org/south/depart ments/lrc/google_game.doc  “Effective Web Search.” Retrieved from: search.ppt