Use web friendly words

A search engine works by matching the

words you enter to pages on the web.
So using words that are most likely to
appear on pages will yield the best
results. For example, instead of
saying my head hurts, say headache,
because that's the term a medical
website would use.

Less is more
Simple, one or two word search terms
will usually give you the broadest
results. Start with short search terms,
then refine your results by adding more
words.

Search with an exact phrase

Put quotation marks around
words "[any word]" to search for an
exact phrase in an exact order. Keep in
mind that searching with quotes might
exclude relevant results.
For instance, a search for
"Alexander Bell" will miss pages that
refer to Alexander G. Bell.

Don't worry about cases

Search isn't case sensitive. A search
for new york times is the same as a
search for New York Times.

Search within a specific site

Precede your query with site: if you
know you want your answer from within
a specific site or type of site (.org, .edu).
For example:
China site:nytimes.com

Don't worry about punctuation

Search ignores punctuation.
This includes @#%^*()=[]\ and other
special characters.

Search by file type

Search for specific types of files, such
as PDFs, PPTs, or XLS, by adding
filetype: and the 3-letter file
abbreviation.
Ex: History of China filetype:doc

Get number conversions

Convert any measurement
-- like miles to kilometers or ounces to
liters
-- by typing in the number and unit of
measurement.
Ex: 5km to miles

Get the time

To see what time it is anywhere in the
world, search time and the city or
country.
Ex: time Philippines

Get currency conversions

Get current exchange rates by
searching [currency 1] in [currency 2].
Ex: USD in Philippine Peso

Check the weather

Search weather followed by a U.S. zip
code or the name of any city in the world
to get the current weather and forecast.
Ex: weather Philippines

Get definitions
Put define: in front of any word to get its
definition.
Ex: define: definition

Calculate anything
Enter any math equation into the search
box and we'll calculate your answer.
Ex: 1+1

Exclude a word or site

Add a dash (-) before a word or site to
exclude all results that include that word.
This is especially useful for synonyms
like Jaguar the car brand and jaguar the
animal.
Ex: China wiki
China site:wikipedia.org

Why do you need to evaluate your

search results?
There are two main reasons:
1. Quality control - anyone can publish on
the web, so there is little quality control,
and information is often inaccurate
and/or out-of-date. Likewise, anyone
can contribute towards Wikipedia, the
popular online encyclopedia.

Why do you need to evaluate your

search results?
2.

Reviewing the success of your search careful evaluation can help you produce
better work, raising your marks; evaluate
badly or not at all and you can lose marks.

5 Questions to ask when

evaluating the quality of
your results

1. Author
Is the author:

a well-known academic with many

publications in peer-reviewed
journals?

attached to a university or research

body?

quoted by other scholars?

Or:

an amateur with his own agenda

putting
up a personal page?

2. Host site
Who is hosting the site?
Research institute, university or school
(.org or .ac.uk or .edu)
government body (.gov)
non-profit organization (.org)
commercial company (.com or .co.uk or .biz)
Each of these will have a different reason for publishing
the pages; a university site is likely to be more academic
and usually less biased than a commercial site.
If not an academic site:
check whether the page gives any information about the
history of the organization, its affiliations or view-points
check whether anyone is sponsoring the site, and, if so,
who?
check which country the site is based in. You may use
whois web service.

3. Audience
Is the page written for:
University students
school children
potential purchasers
academics with very specialized
interests

4. Currency
Is the site up-to-date?
Check to see if there is a date on the
page
If there is no date, check to see if there
are broken links.
Sometimes this will not matter as some
information can be timeless, eg. text of a
book, but sometimes you need the latest
research or news on a topic.

5. Content
Evaluate the content of the pages to see if
they make sense are there obvious errors or
inconsistencies?
Have they an obviously controversial focus,
e.g. disparaging, or even defamatory of a
person, organization, religion or political party?
Is evidence cited, e.g. other sources of
information or other research on the topic, to
back up the facts?
Beware the spoof site,
http://www.whitehouse.net/ instead
of http://www.whitehouse.gov/

Sources:

http://www.google.com/insidesearch/tips
tricks/all.html
http://www.bris.ac.uk/library/support/findi
nginfo/evaluation/