Chris Nolan

On Thursday, Chris Nolan came and gave us a talk about useful search techniques in order to find high-quality information. I learned a lot about Google that I was not aware of. For example, I learned how to use Google's advanced search and that was definitely a huge help for my future searches because now I know how to refine my searches by country, language and domain name. Another aspect of Google that I learned more about is Google scholar that allows you to search for better quality resources that can be used in your research. A particularly interesting point was that Google is connected to our library server so that whenever we use Google scholar we can view the full article if our online library sources carries it. I also learned that Google continuously updates their search engine techniques in order to give the users a better search experience. They base the refinement of their search engine on how many links a certain website has within other sites, but they have developed their counting system in such a way that it will not be tricked by sites created to give boosts to certain websites. I learned a lot of little search tips such as adding a plus or minus sign to search for certain words or not to include certain words. When searching for better quality information it is a good idea to look at the domain name. In the search bar adding the phrase 'site:(domain)' will allow you to directly refine your search as opposed to going to the advanced search section. Now I have a bunch of great tips for finding better research material!