Google Search Tips

Google Search Tips

 

  • If you aren’t getting the search results you want change your keywords. Make them more specific or less specific, use synonyms, or rephrase.

 

  • Use quotation marks to search for an exact phrase.   

       e.g. "Wolves of Yellowstone" will only return search results with that exact phrase

  • use search term  site:domain to pull up websites with only a specific domain

      e.g. wolf site:edu will only pull up .edu sites with "wolf" in them. You can do this for all domains, .edu .org, .gov.

 

  • Adding ~ before a word will search for its synonyms.

         e.g. ~energy will search for energy, electricity, fuel, and power.

 

How to Use Wikipedia Effectively

 Wikipedia is a great tool to use for background knowledge. Using Wikipedia for good quality information is possible, but you have to know how to use it.

If you use Wikipedia, look at the references.
The references are the original sources of information the author took from, by using the references you can identify who wrote the information, and where the information came from.

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External Links appear at the bottom of the page, these links will provide you with further reading on the topic and might also be included in the reference section. Using these links allows you to see who wrote the information, what company or organization is giving you the information and will give you clues as to what sort of biases might be present.

 

 

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The reference section and external links section will most certainly yield better information than the Wikipedia article itself, but don't forget to analyze the websites themselves. Just because a website is used as a reference does not mean that it has quality information.