Better Assignment Research

More marks in half the time

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Chris WatermanSt Vincent’s College

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Articulate what you need.

I need information on the Meiji period in Japanese history, including dates, major players, main facts and comparisons

Primary Secondary Also rans

Meiji People Global impact

Japan Activities Comparisons

Historical period

Determinants

Ask Jeeves; Bertie

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So where do we start? Ground floor foundations

MS student Encarta (see search example)

World Book www.mooter.com http://www.rcls.org/ksearch.htm

BUBL (www.bubl.ac.uk) (dewey decimal system)

Yahoo Wikipedia Galaxy (national library of medicine)

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What’s really new?

Go for the latest and greatest RSS feeds

Pluck Etc.

Podcasts Graylit networks

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So let’s Google better. Describe your search as completely as possible

to narrow -- don’t capitalize, Google is case insensitive.

(eg. a search for carnivore obtains a game, a type of animal

and an FBI program, so specify your term)

Add quotes to limit search to those sites with this specific phrase: “history of chocolate”

Limit search to specific sites or file types: “history of chocolate” -.com filetype:ppt site:edu

+ to include; - to exclude (no spaces)

Most search engines have an

advanced search similar to Google’s

Go see William the conker (er)

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Boolean Logic for Searches AND -- This is assumed by Google. No need to

add it in.eg. Chocolate AND cadbury = chocolate cadbury

OR -- finds either term =chocolate OR cadbury

Stemming now works! Still use your wildcards: whole words only; * = any word

Nested Boolean Searcheschocolate AND [diet OR health]

Don’t discard spelling errors Try doing it double!

internet internet

To be or not to be…

Stop words I, a, the, of.

etc.Put them in quotes.

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Narrowing the search even further.Special Syntax filetype: intitle: allintitle: site: intitle & site: (combo) intext: related:

Date Range•Remember it’s in Julian

There are many converters available, don’t worry…http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/JulianDate.html

For the maths dept only:site:com site:edu assumes an AND. Use this to make it ORsomething (site:edu | site:com)

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DirectoriesWhen you go to the library, you have:

subject, author, title, etc, searches.

Mostly you stick to ‘subject’.

That’s what you can do with Google too.

The Directory describes the whole web site, so the result is a reduced subject specific search.

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Remember this about Google Advertising, you can pay to have sites

ranked at the top Results listing is not accurate; it is transitory Will not show more than 1000 results per

search Will not search more than ten words in

search boxuse your wild cards here, they don’t count

Won’t show more than two results per site Google gives its highest rating to sites that

have lots of links from other sites.

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So why bother with anything else? Unseen WEB – Google doesn’t get to everything

You may need to use other engines in conjunction

Ephemeral stuff Use Google’s cache option

Gray literature Academic papers committee reports journals Conference papers corporate docs trade papers

http://graylit.osti.govhttp://adt.caul.edu.auwww.slnsw.gov.auhttp://www.nla.gov.au

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So why bother with anything else? Quality, specific Information –

demands better searching skills

Nature of Structured DocumentsAdvanced Search Training

Sometimes you are looking for a more obscure site You may be searching a material type that another

search engine will do better

chance… all search engines search a slightly different database - you just might be luckier with another!

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Only if we have time…

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Some more cool stuff Google Labs – the coolest feature of all Google calculates! Calculate in words Google defines Google translates Look up the news Where to get pictures Speak:

Swedish chef Elmer Fudd Klingon

Go shopping with Froogle or catalogues Give the sets a go Join a group (ok, this is daggy but some people like

it)

Try the definitions search box for maths or irrational number teacher

Try converting Celsius to Fahrenheit and more

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Google sites

http://alltooflat.com/geeky/elgoog/ http://www.google.com/coop http://www.google.com/trends http://www.elgoog.com

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Cheat Google

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Google Whacking

The ‘game’ of finding 2 words searches (no quotes) that yield only one result. hobo matureness gigolo whitethroat

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That’s all for now

Applaud or throw money…

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Sample searches william the conquorer

Incorrect spelling but still 140 results william the conqueror

Better but now 142,000 results “william the conqueror”

Even better now only 79,600 “william the conqueror” site:edu

More educational and only 2,800 results "william the conqueror" site:edu from the directory

Now really focused and only 321 results "william the conqueror" site:edu filetype:ppt

Now seriously focused and only 38 results

Feeling really lucky? Use the button: results =1