Week Five

Lecture

Google, the answer to any question. Never said it will give you the right answer but it’s an answer none the less. But now I’m finally getting to the point where I’m now adding to what I already know in regards to my knowledge of all things Technological. And this week’s lecture dealt with the more advanced ways to sift through the various searching engines of the Internet, and techniques that you can use to refine and eliminate unwanted information through the use of things such as modifying the phrasing, using a Boolean search or simply going to the advanced options of the search engine in question.
Tutorial summary


Tutorial

Four tips and tricks for using search engines

1. Using Boolean terms such as AND, OR, NOT.
2. Make sure you are looking in the correct place; if you need an article on Nuclear power try looking in a Science Journal Website.
3. Use the advanced search options in the engine to narrow down the topic further.
4. You can exclude sites from your search by entering this along with the search topic -site: Site address here. E.g. {Nuclear Power -site: en.wikipedia.org} will remove any pages from wikipedia from the search results.


In finding the answers for the quiz I simply used a Google search as the simplicity of a general knowledge quiz allows the use of simple search terms such as “Dynamite + inventor” to find the inventor of dynamite. The nature of a general knowledge quiz such as this allows for such skim searching as depth is not needed for the

The lessons learned today is more of a refinement of my current searching processes, normally I would have normally just Googled it with the occasional + or set of “ ” to narrow down the field.
Now I have the ability to refine and sift out unwanted sties of information such as wikipedia as well as a more broad searching tendency, where as previously I tended to use the Internet exclusively I find that I am turning to hard copy works for A more credible sources.


The History of the Internet: (Chap 4 - Search Engines)

As I have most probably said before it is nice to have the history of a tool you make use of, it allows you to appreciate its evolution and how far is has ascended its roots. This was very much the case again for Chapter Four: Search Engines. Having the majority of my Internet searching life dominated by a Google I had not really questioned the origins of a search engine. Though its berth for the sharing of academic data was some what less surprising than the severe jump that Google took in its size from the end of 1/12/00 to the 1/6/01. Also nice to see what came directly before Google in Search engines. Though for all the site is it has an almost antique feel to it, it only gives information up to the year 2000 which makes it good for historical information but considering it is at least 8 years old there is most probably much better sources of information to be found regarding the History of Search engines.

Robert Harris: "Web Search Strategies"

A nice and straight to the point page on search engines, there types and some handy tips to keep in mind when using them. Though perhaps it is to straight forward in its approach as it seams to be very difficult to maintain your focus on the site which would probably be caused by the solid text appearance that it has, and it could quite easily be seen as a text document. Has some good information in it though if you can get pass its un engaging appearance.


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