2 Tips on searching the Internet

DOING A SIMPLE SEARCH

1. Choose your words carefully.
2. Use specific words to describe what you are looking for.
3. Use OR (capital letters) if you are equally interested in two or more alternatives e.g. bikes OR cars

DOING AN ADVANCED SEARCH – using syntax to search more quickly

Required and prohibited search words

1. Attach  a plus sign (+) to a word if you want that word to be found in all of the search results. For example: police +sting  (notice there is no space between + and sting)

2. Attach a minus sign (-) in front of a word if you do not want that word to be found in any of the search results. Compare python versus python –monty (once again, no space between the – and monty)

Document section restrictions

3. t:  will restrict searches to document titles only. Compare joe boxer  versus t:joe boxer

4. u: will restrict searches to document URLs only. Compare intel versus u:intel

Phrase matching

5. Inverted commas( “  “)  around a phrase will result in the words in that phrase being kept together. For example “lonely sea and the sky”

Wildcard matching

6. Attach an asterisk(*) to the right hand side of a word to return left side partial

 matches. For example, don* will give all words with the stem of don (donned; donated; donations; donor)

Combining the syntax

7. This has to be done in the following order

(+)    (-)    (t:)    (u:)   ( “ “)   (*)