Week 10: Searching with Google

You know how to use Google. You've been googling your entire life. You now understand how Google algorithms determine what you see depends on what Google knows about you and thinks you want to know. Now it is time to push that part of Google aside and learn how to use Google to get better, more academic search results. Like any tool, the more you learn about it, the better you can use it. Knowing how to navigate Google, your searches will yield a greater amount of helpful research. 

When you enter a word or phrase in the search box of a search engine, the words are matched against the captured words, and websites are retrieved.  Search engines also rank the retrieved results so that the websites most relevant (or most closely related) to your search appear first in the results. Google works best when you use keywords and worked with your group to start developing your research questions and keywords. 

 

READ: Advanced Searching in Google Links to an external site. from Choosing and Using Sources

The video is a short overview. The next page goes to Google's How Search Works. This will introduce you to more specifics: Organizing information, Ranking Results, Rigorous testing and Detecting spam. 

 

How Google Search Works (in 5 minutes) Links to an external site.

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