Google Operators: Information Literacy
Are you having trouble finding relevant information for your research?
Google has some very powerful tools that can also you to locate almost any information you want in the format that you prefer and from the ‘right’ source.
Looking for information on www.google.com will basically let you have access to information that is trending, commercial information, or information hosted in popular websites. Thus, since we know how ‘likes’ and ‘follows’ can be bought, it is important to learn to filter information.
Let’s do this simple exercise:
1. go to google.com and conduct a search using these key words: ‘collaborative learning’. What do you see?
2. Now conduct a new search using the same key words but add: site:edu. What do you notice? Try again replacing ‘edu’ with ‘gov’ and later with ‘org’. What does site:___ do?
3. Use the same key words again ‘collaborative learning’, but now add ‘type:PPT’. What do you see? Try again replacing PPT with ‘PDF’, ‘DOC’. How does ‘type:___ help?
Using Advanced Search Operators when you search the internet can help you get more useful and meaningful information more quickly.
To learn more about Google Advance Search Operators, download the following PDF taken from the Google Advance Search Operators wikispace.