RSS   Print   Bookmark & share   CommentNeWavEssays » Blog » 2007 » June » Help on Googling

Help on Googling

Google is much more than just search. It offers different seach tools to narrow your search, define things, etc.

I am sure most of you are Internet surfers. And since many of you are students, you are very likely to seek fresh and relevant information. Of course, libraries are always out there for you waiting, but getting information from the Internet is not only faster, but it is also much more convenient.

To help you receive the information you need, we have decided to provide some help in information search on the web. I believe you are using Google as your primary search engine (if you are not, then it is time to start using it), but I am affraid not all of you are aware of Google’s mighty search abilities. In this post, I am going to tell you how you can use Google and it’s search tools to receive the most relevant results from the World Wide Web.

Exact match

To search an exact keyphrase, surround it by double quotation marks (”). Searching for custom essay on statistics vs. “custom essay on statistics” would return different results. With exact match, Google searches for web-pages that contain the keyphrase exactly as you typed it in.

Negative search

If you want to search for a certain keyword, but want to exclude some certain websites from the result collection, simply insert a minus (-) and the negative keyword (phrase) immediately after it. So, to search for information on Bill Gates without Microsoft, query bill gates -microsoft. This is very much different from simply seaching for bill gates. (I am not capitalizing his name because Google ignores cases.) You can also combine the two types of search types.

Definitions

To search for definitions, you should not go to Lexico Dictionary. You can simply type define:essay and Google will offer you all the definitions of the term that it found in the entire web. Simply type define: and then the term immediately following it to return the definitions.

I am not going to rewrite Google Search Features page in here (which includes the calculator, currency converstion, weather forecasts, and much more), but all I want to say is that Google is far more than simply searching for information; it is seaching for relevant, meaningful, fresh and reliable information customized according to your query. So use Google wisely, and receive the information you need, rather than information you are offered.