Getting the Most Out of

A Few Basic Search Techniques

• Use quotation marks to search for proper names, phrases and quotations: “ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country”

• When using the Boolean operator “or,” the “or” must be capitalized: Black OR “African American” and “historical sites”

Using the the plus sign (+) and minus sign

(-)• Use the plus sign to include and the minus

sign to exclude.• To search for vitamin A, type vitamin+A • To search for Virginia, but not West

Virginia, type Virginia-West or• For Virginia vacations that excludes West

Virginia, type -West “Virginia vacations”• Note that you can have a string of

minuses: virginia-west-norfolk

Major Boolean Operators: and, or, not

• Used to define the relationships between words or groups of words.

• AND-- Narrow search and retrieve records containing all of the words it separates, e.g., stress AND “college students” Note that in Google the default operator is AND. There is no need to put AND between terms. You could just type: stress “college students”

• OR--Broaden search and retrieve records containing any of the words it separates, e.g., “older adults” OR “senior citizens”

• NOT--Narrow search and retrieve records that do not contain the term following it, e.g., Africa NOT South

• Nesting: To find articles on coping among older adults or senior citizens, type: coping “older adults” OR “senior citizens”

Searching for a name• When searching for a name, DO NOT put

the name in quotation marks. • Use the Boolean operator OR to string the

parts of a proper name and to allow for name reversal.

• You could also just type the name in any order (last name first or first name first) because the default Boolean operation is and

• A search for Arthuree Wright, retrieved the following variations: Arthuree Rosemille Mclalughlin Wright, Arthuree M. Wright, and Arthuree RM Wright

Dictionary Uses of Google

• To find a definition and synonyms of a keyword, place the tilde sign (“~”) in front of it

• For example, type ~bubbler• When you see this display: 1 -

10 of about 99,500 for ~bubbler [definition], click on the word definition.

Reverse Telephone Look Ups

• If a telephone number is published in the telephone directory, you can type the number in the search box to display name, address, and Yahoo! Or MapQuest directions.

• Example: type 202 244 4128.• This is the first record displayed: Jill Bond,

(202) 244-4128, 3896 Porter Street NW, Washington, DC 20016 Yahoo! Maps MapQuest

Detecting Internet Plagiarism

• Step 1: on Google’s main page, choose Advanced Search.

• Step 2: Select the questionable phrase from the paper and type the phrase in quotation marks in the “with the exact phrase” box and click on “Google Search.”

Select a distinctive phrase from a paper and type it here.

Other Advanced Search Features• Language: The default is ANY LANGUAGE; however,

you may choose a specific language if you want to exclude other languages.

• File Format: You may limit your search by ONLY or DON’T. ONLY will retrieve only one type of file format whereas DON’T allows you to eliminate one type of file format.

• Two of the file formats are Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) and Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt)

• Occurrences: You may specify where your search terms occur on the page - anywhere on the page, in the title, or in the url. For example, to get information on student parking from the HU Web site,

type: student parking site:www.howard.edu

Choose a language.

Choose a file format, such as .pdf or PowerPoint.

Limit search to Web pages that are being maintained regularly with updates.

Read more about this feature in the Advanced Search Tips

Google Has More• "I'm Feeling Lucky“: click here to go to the first web

page returned for your search. For example, when you search for Howard University and click on “I’m Feeling Lucky,” the HU home page is the one retrieved.

• Groups: Post and read comments in Usenet

discussion forums. • News: News from news sources worldwide,

presented by relevancy and updated throughout the day.

• Froogle: Google’s online shopping service for purchasing merchandise.

• Who Links to You? You can show all pages that link to your Web site. Example: link:www.howard.edu

Type Howard University in the search box and click on Images to retrieve pictures of Howard University

Post and read comments in Usenet discussion forums

News from news sources worldwide, presented by relevancy and updated throughoutthe day.

Online shopping service.

Click here for a summary of all Google features.

For More Information

• Log on to Information Literacy and the

University Curriculum at http://138.238.41.134/infolit2004/index.htm

• Click on Information Literacy Resources, then• Click on General Applications and scroll down

to Google.