Strategies of online research, optimizing your search engine query techniques, evaluating websites, and other internet research strategies

1. Google and Beyond
Rethinking your hunting methods
Amanda Deason
Internet Researcher
info@cybershakedown.com

2. OBJECTIVES
• Internet and search basics
• Search engine types
• Other online sources
• Refining an internet search
• Evaluating and Citing sites

3. RESEARCH MATTERS
Research allows us to move from ignorance to knowledge.
There is a wealth of information right at our fingertips.
We only need to know how to access it.

4. THE INTERNET
Recently a population of college students were asked to
explain how the internet works.
Not one person could answer the question correctly.
The word ‘magic’ came up often…

5. Just how does the
Internet work?

6. STANDARD SEARCH ENGINES
A great place to get your feet wet

7. SEARCH ENGINES
Web sites used for retrieval of data, files, or
documents from a database
A search engine search is NOT a live or complete
Web search!

8. COMMON SEARCH ENGINES

9. To go beyond Google you first
need to understand Google

10. • Be Specific
small dog breeds vs. dog
• Use Professional terms
commercial architecture vs. buildings
• Do NOT use punctuation or ask questions
• Capitalization is not nessessary
Houston TX = houston tx

11. Turbocharge Google!
• Boolean Search Strings
• Phrase Searching
• Refinement
• Combine methods for BOOST!

12. BOOLEAN OPERATORS
Terms used with keywords to provide further instruction to the
search engine
Boolean terms MUST be capitalized
Boolean Operators save time and reduce inappropriate
results that must be scanned for relevancy

13. BOOLEAN OPERATORS
Narrows the results to only those that contain both terms
example, construction jobs

14. BOOLEAN OPERATORS
Broadens the search results to include those that contain any of the
terms separated by the OR operator
example, information technology

15. BOOLEAN OPERATORS
Narrows the search results by excluding the term following
NOT from search results
example, colorado NOT denver

16. NESTING WITH THE MODIFER
You can (nest words together) and enclose item like (this
OR that) to help (refine OR restrict) your search results.
book OR magazine
ipad OR tablet
violin OR strings

17. PHRASE SEARCHING WITH
You can “group keywords together” to instruct the search
engine to return results that are and “exact match”
global warming
criminal justice
down comforter

18. GENERATING A SEARCH STRING
Combine keywords, operators, and symbols in a search
string to further instruct the search engine to find and
exclude specific information
banana bread
banana AND bread
“banana bread”
banana OR bread

19. IN THE WILD WITH THE
The , called the “Wild Card” is used to increase the
search results by replaces missing or unknown words in
your search query.
(Electricity invented by )
(A penny is a penny )

20. SEARCH TOOLS
These search techniques will save you time and effort
Your searches will bring in more relevant results.
manipulate the string = manipulate the results

21. REFINEMENTS

22. REFINEMENTS
Refinements do just what they sound like they do; they
refine your results!
This lecture will cover
You will have to experiment with the others!

23. Restricts your results to the specified file type.
doc ►Microsoft Word
pdf ► Adobe PDF
ppt ► Microsoft PowerPoint
xls ► Microsft Excel

24. Restricts your results to those from a specified site.
lsus.edu ►LSUS site
gov ►Government sites
uk.linkedin.co ►LinkedIn United Kingdom site
microsoft.com ►Microsoft site

25. Restricts your results to those with specified words in
the url.
directory ►(eg) directory.mozilla.org
cache ►(eg)thefreedictionary.com/cache
resume|cv ►url resume OR cv, for example:
jobstar.org/tools/resume

26. Combine methods=Boost!
Let’s say I’d like a news article on Information Technology, from a
government site, in the form of PDF, Word document, or Excel.
Create a search string that would help you narrow down the results.
Play around with different combinations
See what you come up with!

27. Look at the key words:
Let’s say I’d like a news article on Information Technology, from a
government site, in the form of PDF, Word document, or Excel.
Here is an example of a search string you could use:
“Information Technology” AND site:gov AND inurl:news (filetype:pdf
OR filetype:doc OR filetype:xls)

28. BEYOND GOOGLE
Meta Search, Libraries, Directories, Oh My!

29. METASEARCH ENGINES
en.Wikipedia.com
www.searchenginepeople.com
Meta-Search Engines
search standard
Search engines
This allows you to search
faster and smarter!

30. METASEARCH ENGINES
Some Meta Search engines:

31. OTHER RESOURCES
Check out other resources beyond search engines like:

32. PLAN YOUR ROUTE
Don’t get lost in the woods

33. CREATE A SEARCH STRATEGY

34. EVALUATING SOURCES
Bag it and don’t forget to Tag it!

35. EVALUATING SITES
You have the results, now what?
What do you know about the items you’ve found online?
How do you determine if the results of your Web hunt are trash or
treasure?

36. EVALUATING SITES
Important because:
• anyone can publish to the Web
• the Web is not regulated by a governing body
• the material on the Web does NOT have to be edited or
even true

37. URL
Uniform Resource Locator (Web page address)
Example:
Learn more here

38. C.A.R.S AN EVALUATION CHECKLIST

39. C.A.R.S AN EVALUATION CHECKLIST
When evaluating a site for ask yourself:
• Who is the author of the site?
• What is the author’s credentials? experience? training?
education?
• Does the author provide contact information?
• What does the site’s appearance look like? professional?
organized? neat?
: anonymous author, misspellings, faulty links, messy
appearance

40. C.A.R.S AN EVALUATION CHECKLIST
When evaluating a site for ask yourself:
• When was the material compiled or created? recently?
• Is the material presented a comprehensive presentation of the
facts?
• Why, what purpose, what the site or information created?
: out of date information, expired links,
inaccurate information, overly generalized information

41. C.A.R.S AN EVALUATION CHECKLIST
When evaluating a site for ask yourself:
• Is the material presented in an objective and non-biased manner?
• Does the information make sense to you based on what you
already know to be true?
• Does the information contradict itself or other parts of the Web site?
: manipulative and/or emotional language, one-sided
information, Web site and information show a conflict of interest

42. C.A.R.S AN EVALUATION CHECKLIST
When evaluating a site for ask yourself:
• Has the author documented or provided sources?
• Can you find other sources (at least two) that support the data
presented on the site in question?
: lack of documentation, information contradicts
other known reliable sources

43. EVALUATING SITES
Citing Sources
Give credit where credit is due!
There are even sites that will do it for you:
http://www.easybib.com
http://www.citationmaker.com
And sites that will check for plagiarism & grammar errors:
http://www.smallseotools.com/plagiarism-checker

44. HUNTING KIT
Assembling your hunting tool kit
• Keyword search use specific, relevant, professional terms
• Boolean operators refine search by including or excluding terms
• Phrase search specify term groupings and order
• URL checking domain types help identify source type
• C.A.R.S. evaluate your sources
• Cite sources plagiarism is not flattery it is unethical and wrong
• Be safe! You never know where those Web pages have been!

45. FAVES
Hand-picked hunting essentials

46. I LOVE LOVE LOVE www.deeperweb.com ! ! ! !
Powered by Google, it displays results a bit differently through
clustering and tags. Very efficient searching!
Take the lightning fast tour/tutorial here:
http://deeperweb.com/help/tutorial-howto.php

47. www.dogpile.com
Searches Google, Yahoo, and Yandex.
You will find that some meta-search engines display duplicates,
dogpile analyzes the results, determines relevancy, and eliminates
duplicates.

48. Do not underestimate the value of a social network!
On LinkedIn you’ll find groups of professionals and novices who
share similar interests all collaborating and learning from each
other in LinkedIn Groups. For example I am a part of these groups:
Join me!
http://www.linkedin.com/in/amandadeason

49. Pinterest is so much more than just recipes and sewing tutorials.
More and more companies are realizing the value of a visual search
and storage tool.
Learn, share, create, collaborate, and yes even get a good
chocolate cookie recipe at http://www.pinterest.com

50. Please note I only briefly touched on a few topics I feel are
essential to internet research. I didn’t even discuss these:

51. AMANDA DEASON
Internet Researcher
info@cybershakedown.com
I encourage you to contact me regarding any internet research
questions and/or comments.
Happy Hunting!

52. RESOURCES
Information in this lecture is a combination of my own prior knowledge and information
found from these online resources:
GRCC – Holman Library Wordle
Ted Rogers School of Management Google tutorials
Class Zone Web Research Guide seo.certification.or.in
Laura Cohen, The Finer Points of Web Search Life Online
World Science Festival