Google Search Methods: Search Tips & Strategies for Investigative

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Google Search Methods: Finding things you didn’t know existed

Daniel M. Russell , PhD Search Quality & User Experience Research

Tipsheet: bit.ly/Dan-ADV-Tipsheet2015 Slides: bit.ly/Dan-SKUP-preso

Search Tips & Strategies for Investigative Journalists

1. Search-‐by-‐image

•  Suppose you have an image…

… how can you figure out what it is? … where did it come from? … who has copyright?

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Demo

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You can ask impossible questions…

Where is this?

Search by Image

I found this in the basement… what is it?

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What kind of a caterpillar is this?

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Search-‐by-‐Image

1.  Drag the image into Image Search

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Modify the query to provide context

2. Add a couple of keywords…

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Subimaging as a way to get SBI to work

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Crop to just the salient bit

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Summary: Search-‐by-‐Image

1.  Use SBI on images from books (finds images from many resources)

2.  Highest probability is for “common images / common views”

3.  Modify query on search to focus in with additional information

4.  Crop image to region with single element (e.g., logo or distinctive feature) 13

2. Image Search: Filtering by color

•  Use the image filters to drill into results

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Select “Search Tools” > Color > Green

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3. Alerts aka “standing queries”

•  http://www.google.com/alerts •  Scan news, groups, web, videos, comprehensive… •  Generate emails automatically

–  Use in conjunction with advanced search techniques

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4. Number of results

•  The # of results is an estimate. (Repeat that!)

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1.08M

73K

84K

5. Google Trends

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Trends

•  search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, time frames and properties

[ Google Trends ]

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Lower half: filter by region

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6. Google Correlate

•  Allows searches for queries that correlate in volume over time

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7. Other Googles Exist

•  The Google you know is the US version.

•  Many countries, most major languages have their own version of Google.

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For example…

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Methods to find informa0on from other languages

1.  Go to the Google web search for that country.

2.  Use the built-in other-language tool in Advanced Search

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Go to country’s own Google

•  Example: Google.co.in

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Selec0ng Hindi from the home page: [ eurozone ]

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Different Googles to try…

•  Pay attention to the languages offered by each country’s localized versions

–  Google.co.za (S. Africa) –  Google.co.ke (Kenya) –  Google.co.id (Indonesia) –  Google.co.vt (Việt Nam) –  etc....

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•  Fastest way to find country Google access?

–  [ Google <country> ]

–  [ Google Ireland ] –  [ Google Singapore ] –  [ Google Tasmania ]

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Different Googles to try…

Excep0ons

•  Notes: –  MOST countries use Google.co.?? as their domain –  BUT.. Some are Google.com.?? (e.g., Ghana:

Google.com.gh ) –  SOME.. Are Google.?? (e.g., Rwanda: Google.rw )

•  Not possible to use Google to search some domains: –  Bhutan –  Mayotte –  etc…

–  But you CAN use the site:yt to search Mayotte (YT) or site:bt to search Bhutan (BT)

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Excep0ons

Why might you care?

•  The news is very different depending on where you stand 35

What matters / what doesn’t matter in search

•  Capitalization doesn’t matter (except for OR)

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•  Diacritical characters DO matter (á, é, í, ó, ú, ý, ö, ø, å, Ç, Ğ, I, İ...)

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•  But special characters DO NOT matter

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8. Language Translation

•  Constantly improving… •  Romance-to-Romance translations are (currently) the best

[ Google translate ]

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Pay attention to the suggestions…

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Combine content + tools: Other Wikipedias

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English (6K words) Russian (7K)

9. Finding Tools

•  Good searchers know that tools can help their searching

•  3 tools to start you off: 1. Reverse dictionary 2. Finding ListServs 3. Control-F

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9.A. Finding and using other tools

You’re writing a story about a recent air disaster, and there’s a question about the integrity of the outside of the jet engine.

Question: What is that part of a jet engine called?

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Answer: I don’t know.

•  This is a really hard question. The best way to answer it is to first look for a tool that can help: ….. a reverse dictionary. [ reverse dictionary ]

Reverse dictionary

•  Then, go to the reverse dictionary http://www.onelook.com/reverse-dictionary.shtml … and type in the words [ jet engine housing streamlined] then look thru the list of words it shows you.

•  Answer: “nacelle”

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9.B. Finding LISTSERVs

•  Why LISTSERVs? Superb source for people complaining.

[ list of LISTSERVS ]

•  Pay attention to suggestions as they appear

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9.C Control-F to find a word on the page

•  Does the California Vehicle Code regulate the use of “pocket bikes” on roads?

[ California Vehicle Code ]

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It’ll look like this…

•  It’s 65 pages long

•  Is the phrase “pocket bike” used here?

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Control-F aka CMD-F aka Edit>Find

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Control-F

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NOTE!

How knowing Control-F changes things

•  Question: How many times does the word

behold

appear in the King James bible?

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9.D. There is a regexp “Find” Chrome extension

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When does Control-F NOT work?

•  A: When the entire document isn’t loaded into the browser page

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All 177,000 results don’t all fit onto one page

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Advance to page 2

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Or… the entire page auto-loads as you scroll

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9.D. Tools: Search web history •  Works only if logged-in AND you’ve opted-in

www.google.com/history

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Your web search history is searchable (if you have it turned on)

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9.E. Define

•  Example: [ define loxodrome ] [ define Mollweide projection ] 68

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10.A. Scholar

•  Collection of scholarly papers from the research literature

•  Legal content (growing in quantity and coverage)

•  Has its own Alerts and Notifications

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Scholar

Scholar contains legal opinions as well

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Change type here

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Current drawbacks

•  Lack of an easy way to look for important legal issues in a case (Keycite from WestLaw)

•  specific issues and authoriRes which serve as the basis for the ruling, and indexes them in a summary at the start of the case

•  No way to Shepardize cases •  Shepards CitaRon Service is aLexis tool which enables a researcher to quickly

determine whether or not a case is sRll good law. (manually review each of the results)

•  Federal case law goes back 80 years

•  State case law goes back 50 years

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Legal content in Scholar: Advantages

•  Ge[ng the "big picture" of the scholarly discourse around a topic.

•  Viewing books, arRcles, conference proceedings, and more all in one list.

•  Determining authors and publicaRons in an area of interest.

•  Tracking down incomplete citaRons.

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Author search in Scholar

For example: The search [friedman regression] returns papers on the subject of regression wrièn by people named Friedman. If you want to search on an author's full name, or last name and iniRals, enter the name in quotes: ["jh friedman"]. There must be no space between "author:" and your search term.

For example:

[author:flowers] returns papers wrièn by people with the name Flowers, whereas [flowers -‐author:flowers] returns papers about flowers, and ignores papers wrièn by people with the name Flowers.

Try alternate spellings of name: To find papers by Donald E. Knuth try [author:"d knuth”] [ author:"de knuth”] [author:"donald e knuth"].

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Publication restrict

(This opRon is only available on the Advanced Scholar Search page.) Example:

If you want to search the Journal of Finance for arRcles about mutual funds, you might start like this:

In general, publicaRon-‐restricted searches are effecRve if you're certain of what you're looking for, but they‘re oien narrower than you might expect.

For instance:

You might find that a search across all publicaRons for [mutual funds] gives more useful results than a more specific search for "funds" only in the Journal of Finance.

Remember to try alternate spellings: e.g., Journal of Biological Chemistry is oien abbreviated as J Biol Chem, or J Bio Chem.

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10.B. Books

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•  Books.google.com –  scanned page images [ manta ray ]

•  “Find in a library”

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10.C. Patents

•  Google.com/patents

•  Usually want to use advanced search here

•  Now includes EU patents

10.D. Data table search: Research.Google.com/tables

•  Can now search for data tables directly

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11. Public Data Explorer: Search / Visualize Public Data

http://www.google.com/publicdata/

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Search, Visualize, and Upload datasets

http://www.google.com/publicdata/

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Caution: Read metadata on tables carefully!

searchresearch1.blogspot.com/2014/02/answer-how-many-students-how-many-years.html

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Caution: Read metadata on tables carefully!

searchresearch1.blogspot.com/2014/02/answer-how-many-students-how-many-years.html

Small difference: The NSF numbers were 1/3rd the OECD’s numbers… Why? Turns out they count differently.

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12. Google Maps / Earth / Geo in general

Important skill: Search for tools •  f

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opposite / adjacent = tan ( Θ ) 1.45 / 8.80 = tan ( Θ ) 1.45 / 8.80 = 0.1651 [ arctan (0.1651) ] [ 0.16362 radians in degrees ] 9.3749 / 0.27 = 34.7 minutes …. Or 7:39AM

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Or… you could just look for a tool to do it…

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BUT….

[ right triangle angle calculator ]

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Flying into JFK (from the east to west)

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What’s causing those rectilinear features ?

How big are those features?

•  Use Google Earth (or Maps) to zoom in with a measuring tool

•  Realize that these aren’t CANALS, they’re more like DITCHES!

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Google Maps Terrain View

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To turn on Terrain view (TrafUic, etc.)

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Turn on Terrain view

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Turn on Terrain view

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How to measure distances in Google Map

•  Right click (control-click on Mac) to start:

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For our purposes, what can YOU find?

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“What’s around here?”

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What’s the news story…

•  … now that you know what the company is, you can find associated news stories.

•  With the map, you can identify the source of the company’s pollution, where it’s going, and who is (should-be) worried about it!

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12.B. StreetView Archives

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Upper left: use slider

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Slider back to Apr 2008

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12.C. Maps Gallery – maps.google.com/gallery/

•  Maps Gallery: a collection of time-based / geo-ref maps

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Locating things in the world

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Where in the world is this?

Examine the EXIF data…

•  EXIF is metadata built into the image file.

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Enter Lat/Long directly into Google Maps

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Get lat/long and drop into Google Maps

•  Streetview of Beach Dr in Aptos

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13. Operators

•  There are many operators (filetype: site: inurl: intext: etc.) •  See Tipsheet for more details

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Finding a particular kind of document

•  Your brother is a teacher at the local high school, and needs to find a lesson plan for a unit on superconducting materials.

•  Question: Can you find a lesson plan for him?

•  Hint: Look for a particular KIND of document…

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Answer

•  Use the operator FILETYPE: to focus in just on presentations [ superconductor high school filetype:ppt ]

•  Note that filetype: can take on ANY file extension – –  PDF, PPT, XLS, DOC, WMV, TXT, CSV, SKP, KMV, …

(In fact, arbitary extensions… e.g., AQS)

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* Searching within a particular site

•  Someone told me that I’d been quoted in the New York Times. OMG! What did I say that was quotable?

•  Can you find a page in the New York Times where I (Dan Russell) was quoted?

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Answer

•  Use the site: operator to search within a particular web site… [ “Daniel M Russell” site:nytimes.com ]

… and see the number 1 hit. (Yes, I worked at IBM.)

Answer: 1. Because “Daniel Russell” is a very common name.

2. The NYTimes has the convention of always spelling a person’s name out completely, including middle initials

Gotcha: [ site:.EDU query ] careful about EDU

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Another use of site: -- to search within

•  Example: Want to find all mentions of the composer Alan Hovhaness in the U. Maryland Music Archives collection.

•  How?

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digital.lib.umd.edu

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On the other hand… Don’t overlimit your search!

•  My friend Sean Carlson posts to Facebook “I’ve written an article in a major NYC paper…”

•  I foolishly search for: [ Sean Carlson Ireland site:nytimes.com ]

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What SHOULD I have done?

•  Tried the simpler case first: [ Sean Carlson Ireland New York ]

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Limit search by time…

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* Advanced search tool

•  How to get to the advanced search UI

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Advanced Search UI

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Or… the obvious

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Useful Advanced Search Feature…

•  Can select language of the result AND the location from which the results should be drawn…

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Results

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Tactic: use OR for synonym control

•  When you want to control synonyms used •  Note: MUST be capitalized!

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intext: requires that text be ON the page

•  For instance, if you search for: [ chilean toothfish ]

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•  However, if you quote it… [ “chilean toothfish” ]

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•  Using intext: [ intext:“chilean toothfish” ]

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14. Google Custom Search Engines (CSE)

•  Custom Search Engine lets you build a specialized search engine

[ Google Custom Search Engine ]

•  www.google.com/cse/

•  Example: How can you search over all of the content in all of the 10 UC campuses?

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•  You could do a query like:

[ coral seminar June 2014 site:ucsd.edu OR site:ucdavis.edu OR ... etc... ]

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Now… to use this:

•  Use just like Google (but the results come ONLY from the UC sites you selected)

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Sample results

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15. Question-‐asking/answering

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Summary

•  When in doubt, search it out!

•  Your search skills will become stale quickly… …. keep tracking the new features that we offer!

•  Practice deliberately. When you get the chance, try the same search a few different ways and note the differences. Ask why!

How to learn this stuff: MOOCS

•  PowerSearchingWithGoogle.com

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PowerSearchingWithGoogle.com

•  “Behind me is a ruin at the western edge of the city by the Bay… Once, on this site stood an impressive structure, one that is now veiled in mystery and exists only as a ruin.

•  Can you find out what was once here, and once you know that, can you determine how many cubic feet of cement it took to build this amazing structure?

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Open now!

Google Cheat Sheet PDF file

bit.ly/Google-cheat-sheet

Try out AGoogleADay.com

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Feedback from you! (email me: [email protected])

•  What resources do YOU use in your searches? –  A la Online Encyclopedia of Integers; BLS; etc.

•  What information maps do YOU use? –  a la the “reverse dictionary”

•  What’s the hardest problem (or kind of problem) you’ve had to deal with?

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Tipsheet:

bit.ly/Dan-IRE-Tipsheet2015 bit.ly/Dan-IRE-Tipsheet2014 bit.ly/Dan-IRE-Tipsheet2013

My home site:

bit.ly/DanHome My blog:

SearchResearch1.blogspot.com @dmrussell [email protected]

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Documents

Google Search Methods: Search Tips & Strategies for Investigative