How to make your internet search worth while

The proof is in the words. The internet is so large that sometimes it is hard to find exactly what we are looking for. For the most part it is there just hiding between other things including advertising that contains targeted key words.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Computer
• Internet connection and browser
• Search engine

1. Start with a simple choice of words. Remember that in the English language there is more then one word for everything. Try variations of these words until you find exactly what you are looking for.
2. Add words together. Each time you add additional words it will narrow your search. By adding 2-3 words it can bring the results down from a few million to a couple of hundred thousand. Sounds like a lot but we can work on narrowing this further. Just remember when you search for parks it is not the same search as parks NJ. Do you see the difference? You start out with everything and work your way down to results that are closer to what you are looking for.
3. Try the minus sign. I can not tell you how many times I have searched for things only to start looking at the results and find it thought I meant something totally different. The minus before a term tells the search engine that is what you don’t want. For instance parks NJ –water. This search would say I am looking for parks in NJ but ones that are not water related. See how much that can narrow out the things you don’t want?
4. Do you know exactly what you are looking for? Some teachers check term papers by searching them on the internet. Here is the trick. Take one whole sentence and place it within double quotation marks. It will search for exactly that phrase and if you copied it you will be busted in a heartbeat.
5. There are a few other options that you can use like the minus sign but every search agent is different. I would suggest clicking on the “help” button that most search engines provide and it should have a list of the different characters that can be added to better define your searches.