Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Google for Writers

I don’t know about you, but the site that I use most frequently is Google. I have it set as my home page now, since I bring it up so much.

There are some time-saving tips for use with Google, in case you’re like me (always searching for something in a hurry.) Check out the Google Guide. Here are some of the more-useful search tips (excerpted right from the guide):

salsa dance the word salsa but NOT the word dance (that’s a minus sign before the ‘dance.’)

castle ~glossary glossaries about castles, as well as dictionaries, lists of terms, terminology

define:imbroglio definitions of the word imbroglio (or whatever word you’re looking up) from the Web

site: Search only one website or domain. Halloween site:www.census.gov (Search for information on Halloween gathered by the US Census Bureau.)

link: Find linked pages, i.e., show pages that point to the URL. link:warriorlibrarian.com (Find pages that link to Warrior Librarian's website.)

phonebook: Show all phonebook listings. phonebook: Disney CA (Search for Disney's phone numbers in California - CA.)

info: (or id:) Find info about a page. info:www.theonion.com (Find information about The Onion website.)

related: List web pages that are similar or related to the URL. related:www.healthfinder.gov (Find websites related to the Healthfinder website.)

intitle: The terms must appear in the title of the page. movies comedy intitle:top ten (Search for pages with the words movie and comedy that include top ten in the title of the page.)

It can be really frustrating to Google something specific and have thousands of unrelated hits come up. These are tools to narrow down what we’re looking for and get our information quicker—and get back to writing.