Search Tips

While you may be familiar with searching for information online, particularly with Google, you’ve probably also had the frustrating experience for getting a large amount of irrelevant results. So what can we do to make this process easier? Well, here are some recommendations that will help you improve your search strategies, whether you’re researching academically or searching for a hobby like sewing.

First, try these tips outlined by the team at Mind Tools:

(Note: They have even made a handy video for you to watch as well)

 

1. Vary your Search Engine: Now you most likely already know and use Google, you have probably also heard of other search engines like Bing and Yahoo, but there are other lesser known ones like DuckDuckGo, Swisscows, Ecosia, and Dogpile that are just as useful. Although we all have our preferred engine, don’t restrict yourself as each one has different advantages and disadvantages. Google may return the largest variety of results, but Bing has a more extensive autocomplete system ,and Swisscows provides better privacy protection and family friendly results. Try these and others out to find which ones work best for you.
   • Note: DuckDuckGo is great for searching for free sewing sewing patterns
2. Use Keywords: When you’re starting out a new search, don’t use whole sentence as you’re unlikely to get the best results, instead try choosing a few keywords and thinking of similar terms and short phrases, e.g. Don’t use: different fabrics for sewing and what you can make with them, instead try: fabric types, or: fabric uses.
3. Simplify your Search Terms: Some search engines search for every word you use, so try to exclude common words like prepositions (in, of, on), conjunctions (and, but) and articles (a, the), as well as plurals or verb suffixes (-ed, -ing), as otherwise you’re likely to get more results than what you need and many will be irrelevant. The main exception to this, however, is when you’re searching for titles or names that include them, e.g. if you’re searching for The Sewing Book by Alison Smith, use the whole name rather than sewing book as you will get results for a lot of other sewing books.
4. Quotation Marks: To further refine your search results try using quotation marks as it prompts the search engine to search for this exact wording, which will help you get more relevant results e.g. using “t shirt” fabric types will return results for only fabrics that are used for making t shirts.
5. Remove Unhelpful Terms: Using a hyphen/small dash/minus sign immediately before a word will exclude it from a your search and help you get more specific results, e.g. you’re looking for sewing patterns but you only want pdf patterns by using: sewing patterns -printed, will return results for digital sewing patterns.
6. Refining your Search: Beyond the hyphen/small dash/minus sign, you can also use other characters or terms, known as operators, that will provide more target searches to narrow down your results. Some of these include:
   • Wildcard Searches use the * symbol as a placeholder for another word e.g. using: * pattern adjustment will find you results for pattern adjustment and other word before it like: basic, length, shoulder, bust etc. Additionally, you can also use the * symbol at the end of the word to include all variations or spellings, this is known as Truncation.
   • Combination Searches or Boolean Searchers uses AND/OR/NOT. Not all search engines use this search method, but they are often useful to know for searching databases or library catalogues. The AND operator ensures that your search results only include these two or more terms, e.g. using: sewing AND dressmaking, will only give you results that include both of these terms. Alternatively, the OR operator will search for the two or more terms simultaneously, and is very useful to when the terms are very similar e.g. using: sewing OR dressmaking, will provide results where either term has been used  without needing both to be present. And the NOT operator work in the same way as using the hyphen/small dash/minus sign. For a more in-depth explanation try watching this video:
   • To Search a Specific Site type site: followed by the URL of the website that you want to search and your search term, this will limit your search results to this single website.

7. Avoid Search Traps: When searching online, it’s important to keep in mind that many companies are committed to improving their visibility online and ensuring that you visit their site. So, they constantly adjusting the wording of their websites to match up with the most commonly used keywords, this known as Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and as a result, the search results at the top of the page have a good SEO but this doesn’t mean they have the right content for your needs so you should still look through the lower results to find the best information. Additionally, many companies pay for their sites to be listed first as they know people are most likely to choose the first result to save time and effort, so only click on these sites if they are right for you. Often they can be useful when your shopping online but not for general searches.

Additionally, Alan Norton has a couple extra tips get the most out of your online search:

1. Advanced Search: What many people don’t know is that Google and other search engines have an advanced search option that can be used to refine your search by date, country, amount, language, or other criteria. What this video to see how the Google Advanced Search feature works:
2. Time Limit: Finally, sometimes you just won’t be able to find what you are looking for, so try giving yourself a time limit do do your research in, and once that time is up, try something else:
   • Use a different search engine
   • Ask a friend
   • Post a question in a relevant forum.
   • Contact the library, we are always here to help

The Next Step…

Now that you know how to find information online, you’ll also need to know how to evaluate these sources to ensure they are credible and right for you. Head over to the Evaluation Tips page to learn more.

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