It's a Google World

As classes have been visiting the media center the past two months, students have been completing a Google form survey concerning how they perform research for their classes.  Not surprising, the most prominent way students search for information is to "google" it.

Google is so commonplace that even small children understand the concept using the search engine to find information.  However, do you know the proper techniques to yield the greatest amount of information?

To help assist our students, I am providing some pointers to help your searches yield the best possible results.

• Remember that Google does not answer questions, but instead matches words.  Do not type a question into Google, use only relevant terms.  
• The more direct terms you use, the more direct results you will receive.  (Example:  apples vs. gala apples; wars of the world vs. World War II, gala apples and World War II will receive a more narrowed responses)  
• Use synonyms.  Do not be afraid to try searching for a term that means the same thing.  This can yield more results.  (Ex.  
• Sponsored websites often appear at the top of the page.  While these may provide information, remember that these are websites that paid for that location.  
• Quotations around sets of words will direct Google to look for those exact words in that exact order.
• Typing "site:" before a keyword and before a url (Ex:  site:almsmedia.blogspot.com)will search for results in that site.  
• Typing a minus sign (-) without a space  before any word will exclude any words that you do not want to appear in your search.  
• Things like spelling, capitalization, and punctuation do not matter while using Google.  If you do not know how to spell a word try out what you think.  Google will provide some choices.  
• Ever need a definition of a word.  Type define in front of a word and the meaning will appear in the search results.  

 I hope these basic tips will help you while searching for information.  Happy searching!