Internet ResearchBIPRA Conference 2013

Susan Mansfield

Overview

By the end of this session you should be able to:

Search the internet faster

Search the internet more effectively

Get better results from your internet searches

Should I use a search engine?

Get familiar with a few good sources

Bookmark these

– Shared bookmarks?

Be aware of commercial websites

Which search engine to choose?

• Google• Yahoo Search• Bing

Keyword

• Yahoo Directory• Exalead

Index

Directory

Category

• Mamma• ForelookMeta

• http://www.philb.com/webse.htm

List of search engines

Specialist Search Engines• www.acronymfinder.com (human edited)• www.abbreviations.com

Abbreviations and acronyms

• http://www.synonyms.netSynonyms and antonyms

• http://www.definitions.netDefinitions and translations

• http://www.phrases.netPhrases and idioms

• http://www.quotes.netQuotes and sayings

• http://www.lyrics.net Music and lyrics

• http://greatpdf.comPDFs and ebooks

• www.taforum.org.ukAssociations and organisations

How do search engines work

Robots and spiders

Author registration

Ranking– Is word in title element/page heading/URL

– How often does word appear (as a percentage of total words)

– How close are the words to each other

The case against Google

Results vary (.com or .co.uk?)

Bits are broken

Personalisation

Wikipedia

Google is an advertising company

Basic Google searching

Start broad and narrow down by adding keywords

Don’t use too many words

Use words that the website will use

Beware - Google can go its own way

Search operators

Basic search– Smoking packaging

Search for an exact word or phrase– “seize the day”

Exclude a word (can also be used for a site)– restrictive covenant -employment– restrictive covenant -site:wikipedia.org

Include a word– +Smyth

Include a "blank“ for unknown word(s)– “Sawbridgeworth * Women’s Institute”– “Sawbridgeworth * * Institute”

More search operators

Search for either word– “civil partnership” OR marriage

Synonyms– ~marriage

Nesting and compound searches– (“domestic partnership” OR marriage) -“Proposition 8”

~legislation California

Advanced Google searching

Proximity– Sawbridgeworth AROUND(3) Institute

Search within a site or domain marriage site:scottish.parliament.uk marriage site:.parliament.uk Marriage site:.uk

Filtering by content type

Web Images Maps Videos News Shopping Books

Places Blogs Flights Discussions Recipes Applications Patents

Filtering by search tools

Publish date Reading level Verbatim search Images Dictionary tool

Personal Nearby Visited pages/Not yet

visited Pages from a particular

country

Handy Lookups in Google

Definitions – define:suffice

Clock– time Vancouver– sunrise Vancouver– sunset Vancouver

Weather– weather Vancouver – weather (current

location)

Flight information– TS297

Conversions– 4 inches in mm– £100 in Canadian currency– 42 in Roman numerals

Calculations– 14*42/12+2-11– cos etc.

Getting help

susan.mansfield@scottish.parliament.uk

www.google.com/help/cheatsheet.html