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5-USING THE WEB | MODULE CONTENTS

 
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 Tips for Better Search Results lightbulblightlightlight
Tips
Examples

Be specific
• Use nouns and unique words
• Put the most important words first
• Use multiple terms when possible

If you were interested in "bias in newspapers" you could search for:
newspapers bias slant censorship journalism
Use quotes around phrases so the search engine will search for the words as a phrase not as separate words To look for a term, rather than search the individual words in a term, use quotes around it:
 "world health organization"
Use a plus sign + in front of a word or a phrase to require its search A word or a phrase preceded by a + must be present in all pages returned
+"absentee voting"    +"assisted suicide"

Use a minus sign - in front of a word to exclude its search

 If you wanted pages on fusion but not cold fusion you can prevent "cold" from being searched:
- cold fusion  
Use lower case letters to find words that are either lower and upper case
japanese internment
"world war ii"
Use parentheses around terms that are alike. Enter connectors in capital letters
 (adolescents OR teenagers)
television AND children

 

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Original (c) UNBLILT material 2003-2004 by the University of New Brunswick Libraries, Instruction Services Group. UNBLILT incorporates material from Searchpath, a tutorial developed by Western Michigan University 2001-2002, and from TILT, a tutorial developed by the Digital Information Literacy Office for the University of Texas System Digital Library 1998-2002. This material may be reproduced, distributed, or incorporated only subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the UNBLILT, Searchpath, and TILT Open Publication Licenses.