Search Techniques

No matter what search engine you use, search techniques are similar. This section introduces basic search techniques to help you make your search most effective.

Use multiple terms to specify what you need

Imagine that you will teach a class about the weather in Australia and you need to search for some relevant learning resources. It is better for you to use both weather and Australia than only weather or Australia.

Avoid improper search

• Avoid using "stop words," which are meaningless words like adjectives, adverbs, prepositions and articles (e.g., "warm," "strongly," "of," "in," "a," etc.). So, weather Australia will return better results than really wet and warm weather in Australia.
• Most search engines have problems dealing with common words, so avoid using too common words. For example, if you want to find information about hurricanes, it is better to use hurricane rather than weather. Alternative words can help as well: tropical weather Australia may return more specific results than the really wet and warm example shown above.
• If your search term has more than one meaning (e.g., notebook could refer to stationery or computer), you should use terms that minimize the ambiguity.
• Use boolean search properly.

Different search engines have different expressions for boolean search. For example, some search engines accept only Not while some only accept and Not. Before using boolean search, learn the rules of each different search engine.

Practice

The best way to become a search expert is to practice a lot and generalize your own search tips. Try to get help from others or online. The following are some helpful links.

• Berkeley's Teaching Library search suggestions
• SearchEngineShowdown strategies, which also has a couple of nice tutorials beginning with the Basic search tutorial.