First, you'll want to watch this excellent YouTube video from PCWizKid on how to search using Google:
1. Let's try the Google search within a single domain using the command site:domain.com [the www. is not part of the domain name and this search is usually most effective without www]
For example, imagine a search for horses in that domain and this is what you'd type into Google:
horses site:domain.com
Let's look in the Government of Canada Career Handbook for information about becoming a library technician. The handbook at http://www23.hrdc-drhc.gc.ca/ch/e/docs/ch_welcome.asp doesn't have a search engine, so the site command will mean you don't have to search through individual sections to find your information.
Tip: You'll have more success if you search a domain, rather than a sub-domain, because you won't know the actual Web address for the content of the Handbook. So, you need to use the Google search only on the actual domain name here, which is: hrdc-drhc.gc.ca
Tip: You can use quotation marks with the site search, so you can use "library technician" as your search phrase, so that the words library and technician must be side by side in the returned results.
Did you find it? If so, count how many different job titles are usually associated with this area!
2. Imagine you were looking for information about the movie, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, that you saw when you were in high school (imagine that was in the 1980s!), rather than the newer versions that have been released. All you'd do would be to use the Google number search query that would look like this: Hitchhikers Guide 1980..1990
Now use the Google number search to find out what mountain peaks in Montana are between 6000 and 7000 elevation for the Scouts trip you're going on, where you want a challenge but not too great of one!
Find a few? If so, name one of Montana's mountain peaks between 6000 and 7000 elevation.
3. Sometimes you want to find an article you remember reading online and just can't remember what query you used to get there. You can use a few different commands to help you.
If you remember the title, say, Interview methods in online research, you can use the intitle or allintitle commands in Google to locate the article by specifically searching just for titles of articles. If you use allintitle: Interview Methods in Online Research — all of the words will be used in the title search, so you'll only get an exact match.
If you use the intitle command, you can use it with each word to have the same effect as the allintitle, but it would have to look like — intitle: Interview intitle: Methods intitle: Online intitle: Research. If you use just — intitle: Interview Methods in Online Research — you'll get results that use the first word, Interview, in the title (since it's the word directly after the command intitle), and all the other words somewhere else in the body of the document (or possibly in the title, but that's not guaranteed).
So, to practice, imagine you've quoted the Internet article, Building Earth's Largest Library, but didn't write down the author for it. Find the article using one of the title commands and find the author.
Who wrote Building Earth's Largest Library?
For more tips check Google's tips at: http://www.google.com/help/operators.html
and http://www.google.com/support/bin/static.py?page=searchguides.html&ctx=advanced&hl=en
Learn with Linda: Library Training Certificate or Introduction to Internet Writing Markets
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