Monday, 21 May 2007

Module 4: Boolean Search Task

Taking the same key words of your last search, think about how you would best search for the following:

The biggest number of hits relating to these key words - Using Google and using the search term 'advanced Internet users' it came back with 117,000,000 hits. I then searched for 'advanced and Internet and users' and got 298,000,000 hits and Google tells us that when you put 'and' in it's unnecessary as they "include all search terms by default". So basically what we see is that using 'and' in any searches means that it will search for all terms in one hit, which is good but also can give you very broad results so it's not always useful.

Sources relating to skills-based information on these key words - Now when i search for 'advanced Internet users and skills i got 298,000,000 hits and by using and skills this ensured that my results would be more geared towards skills related results.

Information coming only from university sources - For this one i used Copernic Agent and searched the term 'advanced Internet users edu' , whether I've done this ok or not i don't know but i got 51 results which all related to academic related.

Interesting isn't it how results can differ by how you change the words you put in by simply adding an and or an or , a real eye opener.