Google for Writers and Editors

By ashokgopal@vsnl.net

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I. GOOGLE FOR WRITERS AND EDITORS

Google, the world’s most popular search engine, has a host of features for writers and editors.

You can use Google to:

- quickly get specific bits of information
- look up definitions of terms
- find synonyms
- get limited translations from major European languages
- do calculations
- do unit conversions
- get a quick overview of a subject
- get tips about ideas or terms related to a subject
- find obscure information
- get research assistance for a fee

* Quickly get specific information

What is the capital of South Africa? If you want a quick answer, don’t hunt for your atlas, and
don’t waste time doing a Google search for “South Africa”.

Instead, in the Google search box, type “The capital of South Africa is *” without the quotes and
press Enter. The search results page will display one or more links with brief descriptions that
answer your question.

You can use the asterisk to find any other specific information.
Examples:
Saturn has * moons
Mahatma Gandhi was born in *
IBM has operations in * countries

Tip: Use simple and short sentences to find such information. The number of words in your
sentence should not exceed 10. You can use capital or lowercase letters.

With quotes, the asterisk can be used to find a word in a quotation, song, or the title of a book or
a poem. For example, if you are not sure whether the title of a Hemingway novel is “Islands in the
Stream” or “Islands in the Sea”, type “Islands in the *” with the quotes and press Enter.

Note: A lot of information about life and people in the developing world is not yet on the Web, so
you would not be able to find it through Google. Further, Google has no way of checking the
correctness of information displayed. Often you may get conflicting information. You have to
judge the authenticity and reliability of the source.

* Look up definitions

Google can be used as a dictionary. In the Google search box, type “define” followed by a colon
and the term whose meaning you don’t know. Leave no spaces on either side of the colon. For
example, if you want definitions of “calculus”, type:
define:calculus

Press Enter. Google will display definitions under links to more detailed explanations.
The define function works for single words as well as phrases.
Example: define open source software

Note: Google does not do deep searches of online dictionaries. Hence, if you are searching for
the definition of some specialised or non-English term, you may have a better chance of success
at <www.onelook.com>, which links to over a thousand online dictionaries.

* Find synonyms

To find the synonyms of a word, do a Google search for the word. Then click the word as it
appears in the blue bar above your results to get the Dictionary.com definition. From this listing
you can click to the word’s thesaurus listing.

* Get limited translations from major European languages

Google provides automated and free translation services from German, French, Spanish, Italian
and Portuguese to English and vice versa.

On the Google home page, click “Language Tools” and choose the Translate option. Type your
text in the “Translate text” box and choose the languages you’re translating from and to. Then
click “Translate” to view the result.

Like most automated translation tools, Google’s Translate option makes a mess of long texts, but
works pretty well with single words or phrases.

* Do quick calculations

The Google search box can be used as a calculator. Just enter an equation like 567+932= and
press Enter. Google will tell you 567+932=1499. Use the asterisk (*) for multiplication and the
slash (/) for division.

You can also perform complex calculations. To get an overview of Google’s calculator
capabilities, see <www.google.com/help/calculator.html>

* Do unit conversions

How many kilometres is 100 miles? Type “100 miles in kilometres” without the quotes in the
Google search box and press Enter, and you will get the answer. For a listing of all units of
measurement that Google can convert see <www.googleguide.com/calculator.html>

* Get a quick overview of a subject

When you want an overview of a subject like calculus, or eco-tourism, or local area networks, or
whatever, using the standard Google web search is not a sensible option. It will give you
thousands or millions of results without categorisation.

It is better to use the Google directory (<www.directory.google.com>), which uses listings from
the Open Directory Project (<http://dmoz.org>).

Under this project thousands of volunteers from all over the world have categorised over 1.5
million websites by topic. There are 16 main categories and several levels of subcategories. For
instance, the Health category has subcategories ranging from Addictions and Aging, to
Dentistry, Fitness, History, Home Health, Pharmacy, Public Health, Safety, Teen Health, and
Weight Loss. Many of these subcategories have sub-subcategories and sub-sub-subcategories.
By using this system of classification you have a far better chance of getting an overview of a
subject.

* Get tips about ideas or terms related to a subject

The Google directory listing (see above) can provide useful tips about ideas and terms related to
your subject. For example, if you have to write a paper on aging and you are not sure about its
content structure, the directory’s Health->Aging listing will give you a list of topics you can cover.

* Find obscure information

If you are looking for obscure information like a description of a rare fruit, or the history of a coin,
try searching in Google Groups (<http://groups.google.com/>).

Google Groups contains around a billion postings made to thousands of discussions forums
called newsgroups from 1981, when newsgroups originated, to the present.

Newsgroups are listed in ten categories like Biz.(business), Comp.(computers), Sci.(science), and
Talk. (debates on current issues). Each category has one or more levels of subcategories. Each
narrow subcategory has one more groups.

If you can’t find a group that fits into any of the ten main groups, browse all groups alphabetically
from the Google Groups main page by clicking “Browse complete list of groups”. You can also
search by a keyword in all Google Groups or within a category or subcategory. You can choose
to sort results by relevance or date.

Each group deals with one or more topics, and each topic has one or more discussions, and each
discussion is made up of one or more postings.

If your topic has not been discussed by the relevant group, you can post your query and hope to
get an answer from any of the members. You will have to register with a user name and email
address to post a message, and before you post a message it’s a good idea to learn about dos
and don’ts of posting at <http://groups.google.com/googlegroups/posting_style.html>.

Note: The “activity” level of groups varies and some groups are no longer active.

* Get research assistance for a fee

Using Google Answers (<http://answers.google.com>) you can hire a researcher just to get some
specific information. You can ask a question and get an answer from one of Google Answers’ 500
subject experts for a fee, which can range from a few US dollars to a few hundred US dollars.
You have to also pay a listing charge. If you are not satisfied with the answer you can apply for a
refund.

Not all questions are answered — you can’t ask for confidential or personal information, or
information pertaining to illegal activities. You can’t also expect to get lengthy answers like a
detailed project report. However, if you are looking for some business, travel, financial, legal or
medical information, especially information pertaining to the US, or information about computer
software or hardware, the service is very useful.

Your question and its answer will appear in Google Answers for anyone else to view. Before you
submit your question, find out if it has already been answered. You don’t have to pay to read
already published answers.
To search for Google Answers, enter a keyword in the search box in the Google Answers main
page, or search within categories.

* Download the Google toolbar

To easily use all these features of Google — and there are lots more — it’s best to download
Google’s free toolbar. It fits nicely on the top of the browser and enables you to run a Google
search without going to Google’s home page.

The toolbar provides many other useful functions. To download the toolbar and learn about its
many uses, go to <http://toolbar.google.com/>.

To learn more about these and other wonderful Google features, visit <www.googleguide.com> or
<www.elgoog.nl/>.