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Web Literacy: Search 592 Views
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Transcript
- 00:01
We speak student!
- 00:06
Online Searching
- 00:08
[ dog barks ]
- 00:09
How to be efficient with Google search
- 00:13
Search is one of those things
Full Transcript
- 00:15
that everyone thinks they know how to do
- 00:17
but no one actually does.
- 00:18
It's kind of like reading.
- 00:19
Everyone's like, "Well, I can read."
- 00:20
But do you know how to read well?
- 00:22
Probably not.
- 00:23
"I know how to do Google search."
- 00:25
But do you know how to do a Google search correctly?
- 00:27
Probably not.
- 00:28
So, there's a few tactics.
- 00:29
But the main thing you need to do when you're searching is
- 00:33
be specific.
- 00:34
If you are not specific --
- 00:35
If you don't tell Google what you want,
- 00:37
they're not going to give it to you.
- 00:39
Google is a genius.
- 00:41
Its being.
- 00:42
It basically could take over the world. It has.
- 00:45
But it can't tell you --
- 00:47
It can't give you what you want if you don't tell it.
- 00:49
So we're talking about fame and celebrities.
- 00:52
If you type the word "fame"
- 00:54
into the Google search.
- 00:55
Just go ahead and try it...
- 00:57
[ disgusted sound ]
- 00:58
Then what?
- 00:59
[ laughs ]
- 01:00
You might get a Wikipedia article about fame.
- 01:03
Usually Wikipedia is right near the top.
- 01:06
But other than that,
- 01:08
you're not gonna find what you're looking for.
- 01:10
That means you wanna get more specific.
- 01:13
So maybe the question is --
- 01:14
If we wanna go back to an earlier lesson,
- 01:16
the question is, "Why are people so obsessed with fame?"
- 01:20
You can type that in.
- 01:22
"Why are people so obsessed with fame?"
- 01:24
But then, you run into the classic problem of Yahoo Answers.
- 01:28
- Yeah. - And WikiAnswers.
- 01:29
Explain what that is.
- 01:31
So if you type a question --
- 01:32
I love to search this way, because it's kind of hilarious.
- 01:35
But if you type a full question into Google,
- 01:38
Google is smart and it's gonna find that full question for you.
- 01:41
And people ask full questions
- 01:43
on forums like WikiAnswers and Yahoo Answers.
- 01:46
Someone sitting at home going,
- 01:48
"Huh. Why are people so obsessed with celebrities?
- 01:50
I'm gonna type that into Yahoo Answers,
- 01:52
see what people say."
- 01:54
Then random people from all across the world
- 01:56
who are literally sitting on their couches at four in the morning
- 01:59
and have nothing to do
- 02:00
except answer Yahoo Questions
- 02:03
say, "Oh, here's why." and they give answers.
- 02:07
And they're entertaining, but just please don't --
- 02:10
please don't trust them.
- 02:12
Rarely does a professor of anthropology
- 02:16
go onto Yahoo Answers and tell you why
- 02:18
people are obsessed with fame. That just doesn't happen.
- 02:20
So if you type a question in,
- 02:21
you're gonna get very specifically
- 02:24
the answer to that question,
- 02:26
but you might get it from sources that you don't love.
- 02:28
So instead, just try and type in relevant words.
- 02:32
If you're trying to figure out why people are obsessed with celebrities,
- 02:36
you might try "obsession celebrities."
- 02:39
If it doesn't, switch the word order.
- 02:43
"Celebrities obsession."
- 02:45
Word order counts on Google.
- 02:46
Depending on which order you type it in.
- 02:48
You might wanna get more specific,
- 02:51
you might wanna get less specific.
- 02:52
If you type in "celebrities obsession,"
- 02:54
it might turn out that there is a brand name
- 02:56
of a perfume called "Celebrity Obsession."
- 02:59
And that's what you get.
- 02:59
Okay, well, now you know
- 03:01
and you have to take a step back and make it broader.
- 03:03
Another technique you can use
- 03:05
is putting things in quotes.
- 03:06
If you know that you're looking
- 03:08
for a certain string of words together,
- 03:11
put it in quotes
- 03:12
and Google will only give you websites
- 03:14
that actually have those words in that order.
- 03:16
If you're looking for "orange shirts,"
- 03:21
type in "orange shirts."
- 03:23
If you type in "orange" and "shirts," you might get it,
- 03:25
but you also might get oranges
- 03:26
and you might get shirts.
- 03:28
You can also do the same thing where you can tell
- 03:30
Google what not to give you.
- 03:32
Put a little minus sign in front of it.
- 03:34
And then write whatever you don't want,
- 03:36
and it will give you all of your results
- 03:38
that don't have that specific word or phrase in it.
- 03:40
So there are basically just a bunch of different techniques
- 03:42
you can use to Google search.
- 03:44
You get used to it really quickly.
- 03:45
But what you don't wanna do is be vague
- 03:48
and you don't wanna ramble in your searches,
- 03:51
because if you're saying,
- 03:53
"What is it that makes us obsessed with celebrities in the 21st century?"
- 03:57
Okay, there are so many words in there
- 03:59
that Google, who is not human
- 04:00
and doesn't know what you're asking,
- 04:02
is going, "21st century, and, the..."
- 04:04
It's like pulling a bunch of different things.
- 04:06
And then the last thing you can do
- 04:08
is just go to the little header at the top
- 04:11
and choose what types of sources you want.
- 04:13
If you know you're only looking for news articles -
- 04:16
You're in a class and the assignment is
- 04:18
"do research paper based on news articles" -
- 04:20
click "news," and then you'll only get news results.
- 04:22
If you want images, click "images."
- 04:24
There are ways to refine your search that way.
- 04:26
And we can open a whole can of worms
- 04:28
by talking about advanced Google search,
- 04:30
but those are the few key techniques to keep in mind.
- 04:34
[ pen writing ]
- 04:36
How are simple searches performed?
- 04:39
What mistakes might we be making in our searches?
- 04:42
What are some important techniques in searching?
- 04:49
The algorithm... Or not.
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