COMP 1503 Professor DiGerlando: Home

Search Tips

• Use quotation marks around a word or phrase to make it mandatory; a phrase in quotes preserves the order of the words, for example, "student recruitment."
• Use site: to limit results by domain, e.g., use site:.edu to restrict results to .edu websites; other domains include: .gov, .org, and .mil.
• Use -site:com to exclude results from .com websites.
• Use filetype: to limit results by document type; for example, filetype:pdf finds PDFs. Other file types include doc (Microsoft Word documents), xls (Excel files), and ppt (PowerPoint presentations).

Searching for this particular assignment is easy and straightforward because it mostly involves the title of the work, for example, V for Vendetta. Searching is easy because the title is unique and because your results, therefore, have to include the title. The title is like a special hook you can use to grab results.

If you broaden out your search to other topics then you have to search differently. First, choose important words and variations of those words, like this:

1. Synonyms: for example, murder or manslaughter or homicide
2. Different forms of the word: the noun form, the verb form, for example, vote or voter or voting
3. From the general idea to specific examples of something: for example, social media or tiktok or instagram or reddit

Create a string of those words joined by the word or.

Second, search in specific parts of the article because you will get fewer, better results. Search in the Abstract or Title fields, and mix and match how you do that. Search in the title or abstract to restrict your search.

These techniques work together: one expands your search and one restricts your search, and you can combine them or not combine them however you want.