Google Advanced and More

Google Advanced & More: The 8-fold Path to Web Searching Power* Patricia F. Anderson October 18, 2007 [email_address] http://www.umich.edu/~pfa/pro/8fold/ © 2007 Regents of the University of Michigan. All rights reserved. * more of what you want, less of what you don’t

Power Searching on the Web: Tips

Quotation marks

OR

Parentheses

Limit by site

Limit by filetype

+ (plus sign)

- (minus sign)

~ (tilde sign)

Power Searching on the Web: Tips

Quotation marks = Phrase searching

OR = Concept groupings

Parentheses = Multiple concept groups

Limit by site

Limit by filetype

+ (plus sign) = Stopword searching

- (minus sign) = Exclude

~ (tilde sign) = Thesaurus or synonym searching

Tip 1: Quotation marks for Phrase Searching

This is most useful when the words to be searched are not very specific, have different meanings in various subject areas, when having the words adjacent to each other changes the meaning, or when it is important that the same word is repeated.

Which works best?

catscratch fever

“ catscratch fever”

breast cancer

“ breast cancer”

Tip 1: Phrase Searching

Results have fewer false positives.

Tip 2: OR

Use this when you want any of the terms, not all of the terms. Be sure to capitalize the word “or” so Google does not ignore it. Include British and alternate spellings.

Child OR children OR youth OR teen OR kids

Celiac OR coeliac

hemangioma OR haemangioma OR "angioma cavernosum" OR "strawberry mark" OR "stork bite" OR storkbite OR "red birthmarks" OR "birthmarks red"

Tip 2: Boolean OR

Results have fewer false negatives.

Tip 3: Concept group searching with parentheses

Useful to group terms that should be processed together, at the same time and in the same way in the search, but which you want to combine with another concept or term.

Question: Do sports drinks erode the teeth?

Concept 1 = “sports drinks”

Concept 2 = “teeth”

Concept 3 = “erosion”

Note: This is most useful with complex questions, questions with many separate concepts, for which initial simple searches provide erratic quality results.

EXAMPLE:

Concept 1 Terms = "sports drinks" OR gatorade OR "isotonic solutions"

Concept 2 Terms = dental OR dentistry OR tooth OR teeth

Concept 3 = erode OR erosion OR erosive OR "tooth wear” OR caries

Concept 1 Terms = "sports drinks" OR gatorade OR "isotonic solutions"

Concept 2 Terms = dental OR dentistry OR tooth OR teeth

Concept 3 = erode OR erosion OR erosive OR "tooth wear” OR caries

Can you put all those terms on one line like this?

"sports drinks" OR gatorade OR "isotonic solutions" dental OR dentistry OR tooth OR teeth erode OR erosion OR erosive OR "tooth wear” OR caries

NO!!! There are three different ideas here. If you try this, you will get strange (& probably useless) results because Google won’t be able to tell them apart.

Can you search each group separately, and then tell Google to mix and match the results of the 3 searches?

I wish, but not yet.

So what can you do? This -- collect each group of terms by placing parentheses around them to show the beginning and end of a single concept group.

Concept 1 Terms = ("sports drinks" OR gatorade OR "isotonic solutions”)

Concept 2 Terms = (dental OR dentistry OR tooth OR teeth)

Concept 3 = (erode OR erosion OR erosive OR "tooth wear” OR caries)

Becomes this:

("sports drinks" OR gatorade OR "isotonic solutions") (erosion OR erosive OR "tooth wear") (dental OR dentistry OR tooth OR teeth)

("sports drinks" OR gatorade OR "isotonic solutions") (erosion OR erosive OR "tooth wear") (dental OR dentistry OR tooth OR teeth)

Note: You can use parentheses embedded within parentheses to describe complex concepts or streamline the use of repeated terms.

“ baby bottle tooth decay” OR ((“tooth decay” OR caries”) (“baby bottle” OR “early childhood” OR nursing OR milk OR bbtd OR ecc OR toddler))

Tip 4: Limit by site

This is useful when you want to control the quality of the search results, when you know a site that is likely to have what you need, and also when you want to find again a known document.

Want government reports on oral health?

"oral health" site:gov

Want board review resources from the ADA, but without using their site search engine?

(“national boards” OR “board review”) site:ada.org

Remember a patient guide but not what organization released it?

(mouthguards OR “mouth guards”) site:.org

Tip 4: Limit by site

(amoxil OR amoxicillin OR trimox or "clavulanate potassium") site:fda.gov

Tip 4: Limit by site - inurl variant

needlestick (guidelines OR protocol OR "adverse event" OR "critical incident") inurl:med

Tip 5: Limit by filetype

Especially useful when you have reason to suspect that the answer you need will be in a certain format, such as white papers, presentations, technical standards, and scholarly articles.

diabetes diagnosis filetype:pdf

"conscious sedation" ("chloral hydrate" OR diazepam OR midazolam) filetype:pdf

prevention (“skin cancer” OR “skin neoplasm”) filetype:ppt

Tip 5: Limit by filetype

(“oral hygiene” OR “oral prophylaxis”) filetype:ppt

Tip 6: + (plus sign) = stopword search

Use the plus sign to force the inclusion of stop words.

Which works best?

type i diabetes

type +i diabetes

"type i diabetes"

"diabetes type i"

Use this to search foreign words with diacritics exactly as spelled.

É mail fragile compared to +émail fragile

Tip 6: + (plus sign) = stopword search

Émail fragile compared to +émail fragile (phrase means “fragile enamel” in French)

Tip 7: - (minus sign)

Use the minus sign to exclude terms from results when there is a clustering of irrelevant results. This is most useful when you are new to searching a topic.

breast cancer -xxx -porn -pornography -paid

“ birth defect” support -teens -youth -parents -child

find doctor -site:.com

Tip 7: - (minus sign)

Demo of effectiveness of quick and dirty porn filter:

tongue cancer -xxx -porn -pornography

Results without filter = 1,530,000; with filter = 858,000

Tip 8: ~ (tilde sign)

Searches the selected term in thesaurus-mode (Google only). Results include a variety of related terms.

~child dental visits

Tip 8: ~ (tilde sign)

Searches the selected term in thesaurus-mode (Google only). Results include a variety of related terms.

cancer survivor or ~cancer survivor

More Search Strategy Tips

Compare results from multiple search engines

Use advanced search features

Use concept and term suggestions

Use reviewed search results/links

Use special search engine features

More Google

Google More

Includes images, news, blogs, video, maps, patents, and a lot more.

Complex searches done in main Google will usually repeat if you click on the button for the other service.

For special attention:

Google Scholar: http://scholar.google.com

Google Reader: http://reader.google.com

More Google

For special attention:

Google Scholar: http://scholar.google.com

Google Reader: http://reader.google.com

Google Scholar

Screenshot of Google Scholar homepage

Google Scholar: Preferences

Remember to customize your Google Scholar preferences.

Google Scholar: Preferences: Libraries

Set your preferences to find out if something is in the UM Libraries.

Google Scholar: Searching

Same complicated searches we’ve been doing work in Google Scholar (mostly) …

Google Scholar: Features

… and has additional features, like listing the top authors, related articles, and citation searching …

Google Scholar: PubMed

… but often the results are still from PubMed, but won’t let you at our journal articles then.

Google Scholar: Tips for Selecting Results

Links from ncbi.nlm.nih.gov are probably from PubMed, others aren’t.

RSS Feed Readers: Google Reader

Google Reader:

http://www.google.com/reader/

Easy, free RSS reader application

Must have or create a Google e-mail account

Uses a web interface

Alternate (not shown here): Bloglines or your choice

Screenshot

Sign in, or create your account

Or test drive …

The basics: new, add, groups, newest on top, limited listings of new …

Upper left corner of screen immediately takes you to all your new items.

Tips and tricks displayed on far right.

Adding your “subscription” to the feed (in this case, your PubMed search).

Read the feed

Settings (or “Manage Subscriptions”)

Choose options from tabs (defaults to Subscriptions)

Group your feeds in folders. NOTE: “New folder” is at bottom of list.

RSS Feeds from Google Searches

Only from Google News

RSS Feeds from Google Searches

Looks like this:

Assignment part 1:

Choose clinical topic from your other work.

Identify 2 primary concepts from that topic.

Select 2 or more terms to describe each concept.

Construct a ‘complex’ search in main Google using at least Tips 1-3 (quotes, OR, parens).

Repeat that search in Google News.

Save search by bookmarking, adding to del.icio.us, or creating TinyURL for emailing. Print one page of the Google search screen to turn in.

Assignment part 2:

Create RSS feed for your Google News search in Google Reader (or RSS tool of your choice). Print one page of the Google Reader screen showing success.