Transcript Simple tips for Research

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Make a list of all search terms that you can
think of that apply to your topic. Also
consider their synonyms. For example:
Farming
Agriculture
Crops
Planting
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AND – join two words with AND to narrow the search. For example,
joining the words Texas AND cowboys tells the search engine that
you want only information that contains both words in the text.
OR –join two words with OR to broaden your search. Always use
parentheses around the words joined by OR. This tells the search
engine to find information that has either word or both words.
(Texas OR cowboys) would bring up all articles on Texas and all
articles on cowboys. A huge amount of info.
NOT – join two words with NOT to narrow the search the most.
Texas NOT cowboys. This tells the search engine that you want only
articles that have the word Texas, but none of the articles that
contain cowboys.
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Enclosing words in quotation marks will
instruct the search engine to find articles that
contain the two or more words together.
“Texas Cowboys” means you would get only
those articles that contained the two words
side by side in the text.
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Know the term, “The joker is wild?” That means
that in a card game, the joker can be what you
need it to be to best serve your purpose.
Adding the * symbol or ? can serve as wild cards
when searching. This tells a search engine to
find the combination of letters before the symbol
and words that have that combination at the
beginning of them. For example – Texa* will find
Texas and Texan.
This can be very beneficial if you are unsure of
how to spell words or which form you want.
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Always place your most import words first in
the search string. If you are looking for a
family pet, and you want to know which breed
is best to choose, you would use
Dog breed family pet choose