Savvy Searching: Strategies for More Effective Web Searching
- 1. Tech TuesdaySeptember 28, 2010Savvy Searching:Strategies for more effective Web searchingLisa J.M. LinfieldTechnology Education SpecialistCooperative Extension Technology Services
- 2. Why be savvy?“Recently…our systems that process links on the web to find new content hit a milestone: 1 trillion (as in 1,000,000,000,000) unique URLs on the web at once!”- The Official Google Blog2008
- 3. Today we will explore…Web search toolsStrategies to make Web searches more effectiveClues to look for when evaluating Websites for credibility
- 5. …plus a few hundred more!
- 7. StrategyBe as specific as you can with keywordsSynonyms?Try to put main keyword firstLearn one or two search engines wellKnow some advanced searching features (Look for the HELP tool)Boolean searching (AND, NOT, OR)Exact phrase, exclude/include words, site specific searching, specific doc types, etc.
- 8. ABCs of Savvy SearchingAuthorityand AccuracyBias or BalanceCurrency andCompleteness
- 9. Authority and Accuracy CluesLinks to biographical statements Copyright symbol © Tilde ~ in URLContact info for author or organization Parody or satire?Grammatical or spelling errors
- 10. Bias or Balance CluesType of site (blog, scholarly journal, etc.)URL (.edu, .gov, etc.)“About This Site”Requests for money, time, registrationEvidence/documentationAds
- 11. Currency and Completeness CluesRelevant hyperlinksLinks to outside sourcesPage revision or creation datesDated materials“Under construction”
- 12. For further learningWeb Search Strategies in Plain Englishhttp://www.commoncraft.com/searchResearch Help from Steenbock Libraryhttp://steenbock.library.wisc.edu/instruct/research-help.htmlGoogle Search Cheat Sheethttp://www.google.com/help/cheatsheet.htmlBing Search Tipshttp://onlinehelp.microsoft.com/en-us/bing/ff524480.aspxComprehensive List of Search Engines (descriptions)http://www.thesearchenginelist.com/Choose the best search engine for your information needshttp://www.noodletools.com