Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Google Quick Tip #1

Raise your hand if you think searching Google is fast, efficient, and relevant. I'd keep my hand up for fast and efficient, but I would hesitate to say that a basic Google search can always give you relevant results.

Luckily, there are some nifty tricks that you can use to refine your Google searches so that it does not feel like you are searching for a needle in a haystack.

GOOGLE QUICK TIP #1
Restricting a search to websites from universities, government agencies, or organizations can be a quick way to start narrowing your search to get more reliable sources

For example, if you type in the following search into Google, you will find government websites that have information on innovations in medical education. (Click on the link to see the results)

So use site:edu, site:gov, site:org to find education, government, and organizational websites.

We can create a slightly fancier search by using the following idea of connecting similar ideas with the word OR and grouping these with parentheses.

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