Google and google scholar

Jason Coleman Service Coordinator Hale Library, Rm. 222A 532-7427 [email_address] Friday, January 28, 2011 Google url for this ppt: http://groups.google.com/group/googleandbeyond

How Google Works Indexing Google Bots (aka spiders) go to a page and create a list of all the words on the page, in the page’s title, in the alt-text of it’s pictures, and in all the links leading to that page. The Bots follow the links on the pages and index everything they find on the pages and files they come to. The Bots can’t do anything but click and index. Most of the information on the Web is invisible to Google. e.g., The information in K-State Libraries’ catalog and databases e.g., Acronym Finder

How Google Works Searching By default, Google finds all the webpages and files in its index that have all the words and phrases you typed. Note: you are not doing a live search of the entire Web! Google has no idea what the words you type mean. It is extremely literal. e.g., if you search for children, Google wouldn’t show a page that used the word kids in place of children. Google automatically searches for plural forms of some nouns.

How Google Works Searching Syntax Google is not case sensitive. Quotation marks tell Google to only show pages that have that exact string of characters. Google treats punctuation marks as spaces unless they are inside quotation marks. Use the hyphenated form of a word whenever in doubt. e.g., ex-officio matches ex-officio, ex officio and exofficio

How Google Works Ranking of results Google’s fame and wealth comes from the algorithm it uses to order the results. Factors that influence the order include: Where the words occur in the page (in the title ranks highly) The order the search terms appear on the page How many pages link to the page and how popular they are

Picture the pages and files you hope to find. Ask yourself what words and phrases you’d see on those pages. Think of several alternatives Construct a search that will search for all those alternatives at once. If your results set is too large, limit it by filetype, domain, language, words in the title, and/or words in the url. General Strategy

Example: suppose you want to know what Kathleen Sibelius’ birthday is. Rather than type when is kathleen sebelius’ birthday? type “kathleen sebelius” born General Strategy

Broadening searches with OR Typing OR between two words/phrases tells Google to show pages that have either or both words/phrases e.g., advice OR tips e.g., advice OR “helpful suggestions” e.g., “Jason Coleman” OR “Jason Matthew Coleman” You can use a string of ORs e.g., advice OR tips OR help OR suggestions Using OR and ~ to Broaden Searches

What will happen with the following search?: dissertation advice OR tips OR help OR suggestions How about this one?: Dissertation OR thesis OR theses advice OR tips OR help OR suggestions This is by far the most important strategy for improving searches Using OR and ~ to Broaden Searches

Limiting Searches Title searching type intitle: before a term/phrase to tell Google to only show pages and files that have that term/phrase in its title. e.g. intitle:antarctica e.g. intitle:antarctica intitle:ecology e.g. intitle:antarctica intitle:ecology OR intitle:ecological

Limiting Searches Domain searching type site: and then the domain (e.g., edu, gov, com, org) to limit results to pages and files from that domain of the Web. e.g. bird flu kansas site:edu For a list of domains, see: http://www.iana.org/gtld/gtld.htm You can also use site: to specify specific servers. e.g., site:www.k-state.edu e.g., site:courses.k-state.edu e.g., site:k-state.edu

Limiting Searches Limiting by File Type type filetype: and then the type of file (e.g., doc, pdf, ppt, xls) to limit the results to that type of file e.g. caucus system filetype:ppt e.g. “global warming” filetype:ppt OR filetype:pdf

Limiting Searches Excluding results type a minus sign in front of a term or phrase to exclude all pages and files with that term or phrase and then the type of file (e.g., doc, pdf, ppt, xls) to limit the results to that type of file e.g. apple -computer e.g. apple -computer -fiona -paltrow -site:com

Limiting Searches You can use more than one type of limit at the same time e.g., intitle:cancer site:edu filetype:ppt You can add terms without limits and throw in ORs and minus signs too. e.g., intitle:cancer OR intitle:neoplasm detect OR detecting infant OR toddler site:gov OR site:edu -ovarian

Your Turn Use what you’ve learned to search for assignments related to a course you may teach some day.

Where to Learn More About Google Nancy Blachman’s “ Google Guide ” Google’s Help Center The Official Google Blog

Google Scholar http://scholar.google.com What is it? Multi-subject full-text index of conference proceedings, books, theses, and articles Where does Google Scholar get it’s information? Some of it comes from open-web sources Most comes from information submitted by publishers Google does not reveal exactly which sources they index.

Google Scholar How are the results ranked? Complex algorithm that takes several factors into account: Where the matches occur in the document Word order and proximity Number of matches within the document Number of times the document was cited Quality of the source

Google Scholar Searching Tips The searching mechanism is essentially identical to Google’s Use quotes and OR and try to match actual words you expect to find in article titles.

Google Scholar Limiting Searches Intitle: Searches within the title of the document’s source, not necessarily the title of document Author: Searches authors of the document’s source, not necessarily authors of the document.

Google Scholar Limiting Searches Use the Advanced Search Screen to limit to: A specific year or range of years A specific publication or set of publications A broad subject area

Google Scholar Finding Fulltext Google includes some links to free full text repositories

Google Scholar Finding Fulltext Activate K-State Libraries’ GET IT button by clicking on:

Google Scholar Finding Fulltext And then typing Kansas State University in the library links section

Google Scholar Finding Fulltext When you click Find Library, but a check mark in both boxes and click the Save Preferences button (not shown)

Google Scholar Finding Fulltext After setting the preferences, you will have GET IT links and/or buttons

Where to Learn More About Google Scholar Nancy Blachman’s “ Google Guide ” Mayr, P., & Walter, A. (2007). An exploratory study of Google Scholar: http://arxiv.org/pdf/0707.3575v1 Tutorial from Capella University: http://tinyurl.com/capellascholar

How to Get Help Contact the Subject Librarian for your department. For general help, use K-State Libraries’ Ask A Librarian service.

Using Google as a Calculator Simply type simple mathematical expressions and Google will perform the calculation: e.g., 7 * 2 +4 e.g., sqrt 78

Using Google as a Dictionary Simply type define then “:” and then a term or phrase and Google will search several online dictionaries: e.g., define:genial e.g., define:”space cadet”

Using Google as a Phone Directory Dial 1-800-GOOG-411 Say the name of business or a category State the city and State Google then gives names and locations of the top several results from it’s business directory results, e.g., pizza manhattan kansas

Using Google as a Weather Station Type weather (zip code) to get the current temp and conditions and a 3 day forecast: e.g., Weather 66502

Using Google as an Almanac Type in simple fact look-ups, such as the following: Population ecuador Capital mozambique President poland Birthday bill clinton

Links Acronym Finder: http://www.acronymfinder.com/ An Exploratory Study of Google Scholar http://arxiv.org/pdf/0707.3575v1 Google http://www.google.com Google’s Help Center: http://www.google.com/support Google Scholar http://scholar.google.com Google Scholar Tutorial from Capella Univ. http://tinyurl.com/capellascholar K-State Libraries’ Ask A Librarian service: http://www.lib.k-state.edu/reference/vref/ K-State Libraries’ Catalog https://catalog.lib.ksu.edu/ K-State Libraries’ Databases http://www.lib.k-state.edu/db/ K-State Libraries’ Subject Librarians http://www.lib.k-state.edu/services/subjectspecialists.html List of Web Domains http://www.iana.org/gtld/gtld.htm Nancy Blachman’s Google Guide: http://www.googleguide.com/ Official Google Blog: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/

Google and google scholar

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