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Search Engine Tips and Tricks
When you are searching the internet, remember that it is up to you to get the results you need! The internet is massive, but it is not magic. To start, try using Boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT. These will allow you to refine your results beyond simple keyword searching. You can also unify phrases with quotation marks, or use an asterisk to allow for alternative spellings and word endings. Terms can be grouped together with parenthesis to keep things clearer for search engines. These tools can be combined for effective searching.
For example, if I were looking for information related to typography's relationship with calligraphy from the middle ages, I could do a search like this:
- typography AND calligraphy AND "middle ages"
This search tells the search engine that I am looking for results with the keywords typography and calligraphy and middle ages. I've put quotes around middle ages so that the search engine knows to treat the two words as one keyword phrase. If I did not, the search could give me results which include middle and ages separately.
- I could also search for typograph* AND calligra* AND ("middle ages" OR medieval)
This search is the same above, but I've opened things up to accommodate for alternative terms or spellings. Adding the asterisk to the end of typograph tells the search engine that I will accept words that start with typograph but have alternative endings (such as typography, typographical, typographies, etc). I've also allowed for an alternative term for middle ages, also known as medieval. I've kept the quotes around middle ages and used the Boolean operator "OR" before medieval to tell the search engine that I am okay with results including middle ages or medieval. I've surrounded the two with parenthesis to form a search hierarchy so that my results are not confused. If I had not used parenthesis, the search engine would not have given me the results I wanted.
Below, you will find helpful links to build your search engine methods. If you are using Google, be sure to use incognito mode so that you do not get results based on your data history.