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GOOGLETips on Searching the Internet

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Why Google? Google is widely recognized as

the best general web search engine.

According to PC Magazine, a top-rated reviewer of search engines, Google is the favorite search engine of professional reviewers because it "consistently turns up high-quality, highly relevant results."

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Basic Features of Google Automatic “AND" Queries

By default, Google only returns pages that include all of your search terms. There is no need to include “AND" between terms.

Automatic Exclusion of Common WordsGoogle ignores common words and characters

such as and, or, in, of, be, etc. as well as certain single digits and single letters, because they tend to slow down your search without improving the results. Google will indicate if a common word has been excluded by displaying details on the results page below the search box.

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Basic Features of Google (cont.)

CapitalizationGoogle searches are NOT case

sensitive. For example, searches for "SARS“, “Sars” and "sars" will all retrieve the same results.

Spell CheckerGoogle's spell checking software

automatically looks at your query to see if you are using the most common version of a word's spelling. If it is likely that an alternative spelling would retrieve more relevant results, it will ask "Did you mean: (more common spelling)?".

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Different Search Operators

+ Searches - Searches ~ Searches Phrase

Searches Domain Restrict

Searches Definition

Searches

File Type Searches OR Searches♠ Fill in the Blank♠ Currency

Conversion♠ Calculator

Function♠ Unit Conversion♠ Time Check

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+ Search

The + (plus sign) before a search term tells Google to match the term precisely as typed. This can be used to search for common words, e.g. an, of, the, deemed essential. A space should precede the + but none after it.

Example: vitamin +a supplements

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- Search

Place a – (minus sign ) before the term that you want to exclude in the search results. A space should precede the – (minus sign) but none after it.

Example: To find web pages about bass that do not contain the word "music", enter:

bass -music

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~ Search Example

To search for a term and also its synonym place the tilde sign (~) immediately before the term, with a space before but none after the tilde sign.

Example:To search for food facts as well as nutrition and cooking information, use:

~food ~facts

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Phrase Search

Enclose in double quotes to search for exact words in that exact order.

Useful when searching for famous phrases or proper names.

Example:“second-hand smoke”

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“OR” Search

To retrieve results that include either of two search terms, add an uppercase OR between the terms.

Example: cambodia OR philippines

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Site Search

Enter the search term followed by the word site and a colon (:) followed by the website.

Example:Dengue

site:www.wpro.who.int

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Definition SearchType define, then a space before

the word or phrase or a colon (:) to get its definition from various online sources. This is the Dictionary function of Google.

Example:define “health promotion”

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File Type Search

Enter search term/s followed by space and type filetype: file format (e.g., pdf ).

Example:“health economics”

filetype:ppt

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Fill in the Blank

Sometimes the best way to ask a question is to get Google to fill in the blank by adding an asterisk (*) at the part of the sentence or question that you want finished into the Google search box.

Example: Penicillin was invented by *

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Currency Conversion

Enter the amount and its currency abbreviation followed by in and the abbreviation of the desired currency.

Example: 1 USD in PHP

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Calculator Function

Enter the calculation you like to do into the search box. Use / for division, * for multiplication, + for addition, and – for subtraction.

Example: (10+20*30-40)/2

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Unit Conversion

Convert between many different units of measurement.

Example: 5 feet 3 inches in cm

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Time Check

To see the time in many cities around the world, type in time followed by space and the name of the city.

Example: time Vientiane

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What is Google Scholar?

Provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature across many disciplines and sources such as:

Peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles from academic publishers, professional societies, onlinet repositories, universities and other web sites.

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How to go to Google Scholar

• Go to Google web site - http://www.google.com, then search for Scholar

OR• Type this URL in the address box:http://scholar.google.com

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For Mendeley, click the Web Importer from your Favorites and click Import to save the references.

This is the end of the module.