Web Search

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Course Main Objective:

This course aims to provide the trainees with the essential skills to become better searchers.
They will learn how to search the internet and create effective queries to find the right
information. In addition, they will learn how to improve the search results using the
available advanced search techniques. Further, how to deal with the international research
databases like Google Scholar, Research gate, SCIMAGO, EKB including Web of Science,
SCOPUS and Atomic Training facility, moreover, they will learn optionally how to use the
Egyptian scholar portfolio web site.
Course Topics:

By the end of this course the attendant will learn:

 Introduction to web search
 Web search tools
 Search Engine Components
 Search Engine Working
 Search engines examples
 Web and Web Server
 Uniform Resource Locator URL
 Internet applications and services
 Guideline to successful search
 How to search (uni-word / multi-word)
 How to create an effective search query?
 Evaluating the credibility of web sources
 Working with international research databases
 Google Scholar
 Features of Google Scholar
 Smart ways to use Google scholar.
 Research Gate
 Create an account on RG.
 Tips to get benefits of using RG.
 To improve your RG Score
 The Egyptian Knowledge Bank
 EKB Services
 The EKB federated search engine
 Login to EKB of Create New Account
 The EKB Academic search engine
 EKB Free Atomic Training
 Scopus Library
 Search in Scopus database
 Manage Your Scopus Account
 Clarivate Web of Science WOS
 Indexed WOS
 Journal Citation Report
 SCIMAGO Institution Ranking
 SCIMAGO Journal Rank
 Egyptian Scholars Portfolio
Introduction to web search

The Internet contains an unbelievable amount of information, which is not all that useful
unless you can find what you are looking for. Internet searching is one of the easiest and
useful ways to use the Internet. There are endless reasons for why Internet searching is so
helpful. After all, it is not the volume of information that is so powerful, it is that
somewhere within that enormous haystack is the needle you have been looking for. Search
engines are all about finding the needle. People use common search engines to find web
pages, images, books, currency conversions, definitions, file types, news, local information,
movies, and many more.
Internet research has had a profound impact on the way ideas are formed and knowledge is
created. Common applications of Internet research include personal research on a particular
subject (something mentioned on the news, a health problem, etc.), students doing research
for academic projects and papers, and journalists and other writers researching stories.

Web search tools

Searching and navigating the web have become part of our daily online lives. Web
browsers and the standard navigation tools embedded in them provide a showcase of
successful software technology with a global user base that has changed the way in which
we search for and interact with information. Search engine technology has become
universal, providing a standard interface to the endless amount of information that the web
contains.

Figure 1: Top ranked Web browser.

Web search may be achieved by many ways such as:

o Using one of the most common search engines,
o Search the available library portals, or universities’ digital library.

A web search engine is a program designed to help find information stored on the World
Wide Web. Search and navigation technologies are central to the smooth operation of the
web and it is hard to imagine finding information without them.

A library portal is defined as "a combination of software components that unify the user
experience of discovering and accessing information". A library portal is an interface to
access library resources and services through a single access and management point for
users, combining the circulation and catalog functions of an integrated library system (ILS)
with additional tools and facilities.

Search Engine Components

Generally, there are three basic components of a search engine as listed below:

 Web Crawler
 Database
 Search Interfaces

Web crawler
It is also known as spider or bots. It is a software component that navigates the web to
gather information.

Database
All the information on the web is stored in database. It consists of huge web resources.

Search Interfaces
This component is an interface between user and the database. It helps the user to search
through the database.

Search Engine Working

Web crawler, database and the search interface are the major component of a search engine
that makes search engine to work. Search engines make use of Boolean expression AND,
OR, NOT to restrict and widen the results of a search. Following are the steps that are
performed by the search engine:
The search engine looks for the keyword in the index for predefined database instead of
going directly to the web to search for the keyword. It then uses software to search for the
information in the database. This software component is known as web crawler.
Once web crawler finds the pages, the search engine then shows the relevant web pages as
a result. These retrieved web pages generally include title of page, size of text portion, first
several sentences etc.
Search engines examples

Search Engine refers to a huge database of internet resources such as web pages,
newsgroups, programs, images etc. It helps to locate information on World Wide Web.
User can search for any information by passing query in form of keywords or phrase. It
then searches for relevant information in its database and return to the user.

The top seven search engines ranked by Popularity are:

1. Google
2. Microsoft Bing
3. Baidu
4. Yahoo
5. Yandex
6. Ask
7. DuckDuckGo.

The most-used and best-loved search engine, by far, is Google. Google is useful,
uncluttered, incredibly fast, remarkably on target, and reliable. Many people believe that
Google can only be used for inputting key words to web pages and getting results that share
those key words. However, you can use Google to find so much more information and find
it much more easily using specific built-in Google commands.

Figure 2: Google search engine.

 Web Searching Skills
Have you ever searched for something on the Internet and weren’t able to find what you were looking
for or found something you weren’t expecting to find? Internet Search Engines, like Google and Bing,
are continually improving their search abilities. However, by following a few basic search tips, you’ll
be able to find what you are looking for quickly and easily.

1. Think before your search. Think about the topic or question you would like to search. Think about
how you would describe the topic and choose 3 or 4 keywords.
2. Keep it simple. Describe what you want in as few terms as possible.
3. Be specific. The more precise your search terms are, the more precise your search results will be.
Avoid general or common words.
4. Imagine how the webpage you are hoping to find will be written. Use words that are likely to appear
on that page.
5. Capitalization, punctuation and spelling don’t really matter. In most cases, search engines will
ignore capitalization and punctuation in a search and will generally auto-correct your spelling
mistakes.
6. Narrow your search results. There are several ways to help you narrow your search results to find
exactly what you’re looking for.:
o Use quotation marks to find exact phrases or names. For example, if you search for death
penalty you will get hits with both words not related to each other. For instance you may get a hit
for someone who recently died and you may get a hit for a soccer player who got a penalty. Using
quotation marks in “death penalty” will look for the two words together.
o Use Boolean Operators (AND, OR, and NOT) to broaden or narrow your search.
o AND (+ in Google) narrows the search because it requires both terms to be in each item returned.
You mostly do not need to use this function as it is built in to most search engines. However,
using + forces Google to return common words that might ordinarily be discarded, for
example: Peanut Butter +and Jam.
o OR broadens the search because either term (or both) will be in the returned items. (OR gives you
more!)
o NOT (- in Google) narrows your search because it will eliminate any results with the second
term. (Montana NOT Hannah or Montana -Hannah will show results for the state, but not Miley
Cyrus.)
o Apply filters. After you search, most search engines have filters available that will refine you
search to a specific type of contact. For example, after searching you can click on Images to view
images related to your search or News to view news articles related to your search. There are
generally further filters that will filter search results down by date (how recent the search result is)
or by other attributes. In an image search, you can filter images by the type of image or by license
attribution to find images that are in the public domain or free to use through Creative Commons.
In Google, many of the filters are available by clicking on Tools. In Bing, click on Filters to find
 more of the filters.

o Search a specific site. If you’re looking for a specific topic on a particular website, you can use
site: to limit your search results to that site. For example site:ksl.com inversion will find search
results related to inversion only on ksl.com.
o Search for a specific filetype. If you know that you’re searching for a particular type of file (a
PowerPoint to use with your class for example) use filetype: to narrow your search results to a
certain type of file. For example: filetype:pdf will find only PDFs, filetype:ppt will find PowerPoint
presentations, and filetype:jpg will find jpg images.

Web and Web Server

The Web is the common name for the World Wide Web. It is a subset of the Internet
consisting of the pages that can be accessed by a Web browser. Many people assume that
the Web is the same as the Internet and use these terms interchangeably. However, the term
Internet refers to the global network of servers that makes the information sharing that
happens over the Web possible. So, although the Web does make up a large portion of the
Internet, but they are not one and same.

The term web server can refer to hardware or software, or both working together.

Hardware Server

Software Server
 Figure 3: Web browser and web server.

On the hardware side, a web server is a computer that stores web server software and a
website's component files. (for example, HTML documents, images, CSS stylesheets, and
JavaScript files) A web server connects to the Internet and supports physical data
interchange with other devices connected to the web.

Figure 4: Getting information from a web server.

On the software side, a web server includes several parts that control how web users access
hosted files. At a minimum, this is an HTTP server. An HTTP/HTTPS server is software
that understands URLs (web addresses) and HTTP/HTTPS (the protocol your browser uses
to view webpages). An HTTP/HTTPS server can be accessed through the domain names of
the websites it stores, and it delivers the content of these hosted websites to the end user's
device.

At the most basic level, whenever a browser needs a file that is hosted on a web server, the
browser requests the file via HTTP. When the request reaches the correct (hardware) web
server, the (software) HTTP server accepts the request, finds the requested document, and
sends it back to the browser, also through HTTP. (If the server does not find the requested
document, it returns a 404 response instead.)

Figure 5: HTTP/HTTPS differences

Uniform Resource Locator URL

With Hypertext and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), URL is one of the key concepts
of the Web. It is the mechanism used by browsers to retrieve any published resource on the
web.
URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator. A URL is nothing more than the address of a
given unique resource on the Web. Theoretically, each valid URL points to a unique
resource. Such resources can be an HTML page, a Cascading Style Sheets (CSS document),
an image, etc. Practically, there are some exceptions, the most common being a URL
pointing to a resource that no longer exists or that has moved. As the resource represented
by the URL and the URL itself are handled by the Web server, it is up to the owner of the
web server to carefully manage that resource and its associated URL.
A URL is composed of different parts, some mandatory and others optional. The most
important parts are highlighted on the URL below (details are provided in the following
sections):
The first part of the URL is the scheme, which indicates the protocol that the browser must
use to request the resource (a protocol is a set method for exchanging or transferring data
around a computer network). Usually for websites the protocol is HTTPS or HTTP (its
unsecured version). Addressing web pages requires one of these two, but browsers also
know how to handle other schemes such as mailto: (to open a mail client) or ftp: to handle
file transfer, so do not be surprised if you see such protocols.

Next follows the authority, which is separated from the scheme by the character pattern ://.
If present the authority includes both the domain (www.example.com) and the port (80),
separated by a colon:

The domain indicates which Web server is being requested. Usually this is a domain name,
but an IP address may also be used (but this is rare as it is much less convenient).
The port indicates the technical "gate" used to access the resources on the web server. It is
usually omitted if the web server uses the standard ports of the HTTP protocol (80 for
HTTP and 443 for HTTPS) to grant access to its resources. Otherwise, it is mandatory.

The path to the resource on the Web server is /path/to/myfile.html. In the early days of the
Web, a path like this represented a physical file location on the Web server. Nowadays, it is
mostly an abstraction handled by Web servers without any physical reality.

Extra parameters provided to the Web server are as follows; ?key1=value1&key2=value2.

Those parameters are a list of key/value pairs separated with the & symbol. The Web server
can use those parameters to do extra stuff before returning the resource. Each Web server
has its own rules regarding parameters, and the only reliable way to know if a specific Web
server is handling parameters is by asking the Web server owner.
An anchor to another part of the resource itself is; #SomewhereInTheDocument. An
anchor represents a sort of "bookmark" inside the resource, giving the browser the
directions to show the content located at that "bookmarked" spot. On an HTML document,
for example, the browser will scroll to the point where the anchor is defined; on a video or
audio document, the browser will try to go to the time the anchor represents. It is worth
noting that the part after the #, also known as the fragment identifier, is never sent to the
server with the request.
Internet applications and services

Internet Applications can be described as the type of applications which use the internet for
operating successfully. In other words, a web application (or web app) is application
software that runs on a web server, unlike computer-based software programs that are run
locally on the operating system (OS) of the device. Web applications are accessed by the
user through a web browser with an active network connection.
Examples of commonly used web applications include webmail, online retail sales, online
banking, and online auctions.
That is, by using the internet for fetching, sharing, and displaying the information from the
respective server systems. It can be accessed only with the help of the internet facility, and
it cannot be functional without internet.
Services of Internet Application

Internet services can be divided into two groups: communication services and information
services. In the first group the Internet mediates in the communication between two or more
individuals. In the second group the user turns to the Internet-service in search for some
information. Communication services can roughly be compared to a telephone call,
information services to a dictionary.

The most important communication service on the Internet is electronic mail. While the
major information services are terminal emulation and file transfer.

Figure 6: Internet services and applications

Communication Services

Electronic mail (e-mail) is the most popular and widely used network service. It can be
viewed as the electronic equivalent to a regular mail letter. When one user wants to send a
message to another Internet user, he/she types the message into a special computer
program, adds the e-mail address of the recipient, and sends the message off through the
network. Typically, the message reaches its destination almost immediately, even when it is
on another continent. Practically all gateways between the Internet and other computer
networks can handle e-mail messages.
The major advantage of e-mail over regular mail is that an e- mail message comes in
electronic form. Therefore, it can easily be handled and interpreted by a computer program.

Information Services

One of the reasons for the creation of a computer network like the Internet was to give
users access to remote computers and to allow them to transfer files to and from this
machine. These are typical demands for Telnet and FTP (for "File Transfer Protocol"). In
both services the user specifies a specific remote host (through its IP-number or Domain-
name) that he/she wants to access. When the user has an account on this remote host, he/she
can work there just like on a local machine. With Telnet available, more and more Internet-
sites allowed outside users to access some of their information services.
Typical examples are electronic library card catalogs, campus information systems and
other database applications. Today, the electronic card catalogs of practically all major U.S.
libraries and many university libraries in Europe are accessible through the Internet. Many
sites run large-specialized information systems for the "network community."

One of the problems with Telnet and FTP is that the user must know exactly which
information can be found on which computer to be able to find it.

When the user follows a Hypertext link and retrieves another document, this new document
may contain Hypertext links to other documents with their own Hypertext links, and so on.
In this way the user may jump from one document to another and follow an argument the
author of the first document has never thought of. The author of a Hypertext document can
tie his/her work into an existing network of arguments and link to documents stored
somewhere else on the web. This makes the web particularly attractive for scientific
publications, where reference to existing e reference to existing documents is important. In
a Hypertext document a list of references can really come alive.
Guideline to successful search

Google search Effective searching is a powerful skill. Millions of people use Google search
every day for a variety of reasons. Students use it for school, people use it for research, and
millions more use it for entertainment. But most people may not be using Google search to
its full potential. Here are 20 Google search tips and tricks to maximize your search
efficiency:

1 Use the Tabs

The first tip is to use the tabs in Google search. On the top of every search are several tabs.
Usually you will see Web, Image, News, and More. Using these tabs, you can help define
what kind of search you need to do. If you need images, use the Image tab. If you are
looking for a recent news article, use the News tab.

Figure 7: Google search tabs.

It is simple and most people use the tabs already. If you are not, then it is highly
recommended to get associated with them. They can cut search times dramatically if
utilized properly.

2 Use quotes

When searching for something specific, try using quotes to minimize the guesswork for
Google search. When you put your search parameters in quotes, it tells the search engine to
search for the whole phrase.

For instance, if you search data science and analytics courses, the engine will search for
content that contains those three words in any order.
However, if you search “data science and analytics courses”, it will search for that phrase
exactly as you typed it. This can help locate specific information that may be buried under
other content if not sorted out correctly.

Figure 9: Search results with quotes.

3 Use a hyphen to exclude words

Sometimes you may find yourself searching for a word with an ambiguous meaning. An
example is Mustang. When you Google search for Mustang, you may get results for both
the car made by Ford or the horse. If you want to cut one out, use the hyphen to tell the
engine to ignore content with one of the other. See the example below.

Mustang -cars
This tells the search engine to search for mustangs but to remove any results that have the
word “car” in it. It can be wildly helpful when finding information about something without
getting information about something else.

4 Use a colon to search specific sites

There may be an instance where you need to Google search for articles or content on a
certain website. The syntax is very simple, and we will show you below.

Lotfi Zadeh site: Berkeley.edu

This will search for all content about famous scientist the father of Fuzzy Logic, but only
on Berkeley.edu. All other search results will be removed. If you need to find specific
content on a particular site, this is the shortcut you can use.

5 Find a page that links to another page

This Google search tip is a little ambiguous. Instead of searching for a specific page, you
are searching for a page that links to a specific page.

Think about it this way. If you want to see who cited a New York Times article on their
site, you will use this trick to find all the sites that link to it. The syntax is below:
link: nytimes.com
That will return all pages that link to the New York Times official website. The URL on the
right side can be practically anything.

Be aware, though, that the more specific it is, the fewer results you will get. We know not a
lot of people will likely use this Google search trick, but it could be very useful for some.

6 Use the asterisk (*)

The asterisk (*) wildcard is one of the most useful ones on the list. When you use an
asterisk in a search term on Google search, it will leave a placeholder that may be
automatically filled by the search engine later. This is a brilliant way to find song lyrics if
you do not know all the words.
Let us look at the syntax:

“Come * right now * me”

That may look like nonsense. However, Google search will search for that phrase knowing
that the asterisks can be any word.

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Often, you will find they are lyrics to The Beatles song “Come Together” and that is what
the search will tell you.

7 Find sites that are like other sites

This is a unique one that could be used by practically everyone if they knew it existed.

Let us say you have a favorite website. It can be anything. However, that website is getting
a little bit boring, and you want to find other websites like it. You would use this trick.
Below is the syntax:

related: amazon.com
If you search that above, you will not find a link to Amazon. Instead, you will find links to
online stores like Amazon. Sites like Barnes & Noble, Best Buy, and others that sell
physical items online. It is a powerful Google search tool that can help you find new sites to
browse.

8 Use Google search to do math.

Google search can do math for you. This is a rather complex one to describe because it can
be used in so many ways. You can ask it basic questions or some more difficult ones.

It is important to note that it will not solve all math problems, but it will solve a good
number of them. Here are a couple of examples of the syntax:
 8*5+5
 Planck’s Constant
If you search the first one, it will return 45. It will also show a calculator that you can use to
find answers to more questions.
This is handy if you need to do some quick math but do not want to do it in your head. If
you search the second term, it will return the number value of Planck’s Constant.
So, it can do math, but it can also help you solve math problems by showing values for
known mathematical terms.

9 Search for multiple words at once

Google search is flexible. It knows you may not find what you want by searching only a
single word or phrase. Thus, it lets you search for multiples.

By using this trick, you can search for one word or phrase along with a second word or
phrase. This can help narrow down your search to help you find exactly what you are
looking for. Here is the syntax:

“Best ways to prepare for a job interview” OR “How to prepare for a job interview”
By searching that, you will search both phrases. Remember the quotes tip above? It is being
used here as well. In this instance, these two exact phrases will be searched. It can be done
by word too, like the example below:

chocolate OR white chocolate

This will search for pages that have either chocolate or white chocolate!

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10 Search a range of numbers

Searching for a range of numbers is another tip we do not anticipate a lot of people using.
The people that do use it, though, will probably use it quite a bit.

People interested in money or statistics will find this tip particularly useful. Essentially, you
use two dots and a number to let Google search know you are looking for a specific range
of numbers. Like the syntax below:

What teams have won the Stanley Cup ..2004

41..43
In the first instance, the search will toss back the team that won the Stanley Cup in 2004.
The two dots with only one number will tell the search that you do not need anything
before or after 2004. This can help narrow down searches to a specific number to improve
search results.

In the second, Google will search for the numbers 41, 42, and 43. It is vague, but wildly
useful if you happen to need to search for numbers like this.

11 Keep it simple

Now we are getting into the general tips. Google search knows how to search for a lot of
things. What this means is you do not need to be too specific. If you need a pizza place
nearby, use this to search.

Pizza places nearby

Google search will grab your location and deliver a variety of results about pizza places
that are near you.

12 Gradually add search terms

There will come a time when Google search does not move out the results you expect. In
this instance, keeping it simple may not be the best option. As Google itself suggests, the
best method is to start with something simple then gradually get more complicated. See the
example below:

First try: job interviews

Second try: prepare for job interviews
Third try: how to prepare for a job interview
This will gradually refine the search to bring you fewer, more targeted terms. The reason
you do not go straight from the first try to the third try is because you may miss what you
are looking for by skipping the second step.

Millions of websites phrase the same information in a few different ways; using this
technique lets you search as many of them as possible to find the best info.

13 Use words that websites would use

When people use Google search to search the web, they generally search for things using
the same language that they would use for speaking. Unfortunately, websites do not say
things the way people do; instead, they try to use language that sounds professional. Let us
look at some examples:

“I have a flat tire” could be replaced by “repair a flat tire”.

“My head hurts” could be replaced by “headache relief”.
The list goes on and on. When searching, try to use terminology you would find on a
professional website. This will help you get more reliable results.

14 Use important words only

The way Google search works is to take what you search for and match it with keywords in
online content. When you search for too many words, it may limit your results. That means
it may take you longer to find what you are looking for. Thus, it is appropriate to use only
the important words when searching for something. Let us see an example:

Do not use: Where can I find a Chinese restaurant that delivers.

Instead try: Chinese restaurants nearby.
Or: Chinese restaurants near me.
Doing this can help Google find what you need without all the clutter. So, remember, keep
it simple and use important words only.

15 Google search has shortcuts

Several commands can be entered to give you instantaneous results. Like the math example
above, Google can immediately give you the information you need that is displayed right at
the top of the search results. This can save time and effort, so you do not have to click a lot
of inconvenient links.

Here are a few examples of some commands you can search Google for:
Weather *zip code* – This will show you the weather in the given zip code. You can also
use town and city names instead of area codes, but it may not be as accurate if there are
multiple area codes in the city.
The math example posted above is another one.
What is the definition of *word* or Define: *word* – This will display the definition of a
word.
Time *place* – This will display the time in whatever place you type in.
These quick commands can take a web search that is usually multiple clicks and condense
it into a single search. This is very helpful for information you need repeatedly.

16 Spelling is not necessarily matter

Google search has gotten a lot smarter over the years. These days, you do not even need to
spell words correctly. If it is somewhat close, Google can usually figure out what it means.
Here are some examples:

If you search “Nver Gna Gve Yo Up” Google will automatically assume you mean to
search for “Never Gonna Give You Up.” If by chance your misspelling was intentional,
Google gives you the option to search for the misspelled term instead.
This trick is great if you happen to forget how to spell something or are not completely sure
how something is spelled.

It can also be helpful when searching for vague words. This applies to capitalization and
grammar as well.

17 Use descriptive words

Almost everything can be described in multiple ways. Take our namesake, the “life hack.”
The terminology “hack” refers to a computer programmer breaking security on a network
or system. However, when used in conjunction with the word “life”, it alters the meaning to
tips and tricks people can use to improve their lives.

If you have trouble finding what you are searching for, keep in mind that people may
search or define what you need in a different way than you do.
You may search “How to install drivers in Ubunut”?
When you really mean “Troubleshoot driver problems Ubuntu”.
If you search for something and you cannot find an answer, try asking the same question
using different words and see if that helps the results.

18 Find a specific file

An often-forgotten feature of Google search is the ability to search for a specific file or file
type. This can be infinitely useful if you need a specific PDF or PowerPoint file that you
previously viewed or need to use for another project. The syntax is quite simple:

*Search term here* filetype: pdf

In the above example, you simply replace the search term with whatever you are searching
for. Then use the filetype command and enter the extension of any file type you can think
of.

Figure 12: Search a specific file type

This can mostly be useful for scholarly purposes, but business presentations and other
assorted presentations can benefit from this kind of search as well.

19 Money and unit conversions

Google search can quickly and accurately convert both measurement units and currency
value. There are a variety of uses for this, like checking to see the conversion rate between
two currencies.
If you happen to be a math student, you can use it to convert from feet to meters or from
ounces to liters. Here is how to do it:
miles to km – This will convert miles to kilometers. You can put numbers in front to
convert a certain number. Like “10 miles to km” will show you how many kilometers are in
10 miles.
USD to British Pound Sterling – This will convert a US dollar to British pounds. Like the
measurements above, you can add numbers to find exact conversions for a certain amount
of money.

Figure 14: Use Google to convert currencies.

20 Track your packages

Our last trick is to use Google search to find out where your packages are. You can enter
any UPS, USPS, or Fedex tracking number directly into the Google search bar, and it will
show you the tracking information about your package.

This is much easier than going to the specific sites, waiting for them to load, then searching
for your packages there. No examples are really needed, just type your tracking number in
and see where your package is.

Final thoughts, Google search is a very powerful search tool. Using the tips outlined above,
you can find anything and everything you could ever need on the World Wide Web.
Furthermore, you can find more help on how to use Google and its search capabilities on
the help center as shown in Fig. 9 and 10.

Figure 15: Access Google search help.

User can use Google help center from setting menu

Figure 16: Google help center.

Day 1 - Session 2
(150 mins)
By the end of this session the trainee will be able to know
 How to search (uni-word / multi-word)
 How to create an effective search query?
 Evaluating the credibility of web sources
 Working with international research databases
 Google Scholar
 Features of Google Scholar
 Smart ways to use Google scholar.

Session tools

 Training manual
 Instructor presentation
 Worksheets

Training activities:

 Discuss with your colleagues how can you build a complex search query to refine your
search.
 Using your Gmail account create a new account on Google Scholar.
 Use Google Scholar to search articles and citations in your discipline.
How to search (uni-word / multi-word)

How to search skills should be the same for the most of Search Engines as well as library
portals. Usually, universities’ library portals include an online help centers to guide
students/researchers to find out what they are looking for. For developing an effective
online search technique, uni/multi-word search keywork may be used with the suitable
connectives as mentioned earlier, the three most commonly used operators are AND, OR,
NOT. These are known as Boolean operators. They can be used to broaden or narrow a
search and to exclude unwanted search terms and concepts.
You can type these operators in between your search terms, or you can use the drop-down
options in the Advanced Search option. Look at the help pages on the database you want to
use for specific guidance.

It is possible to use a few different keywords or search terms in a single search, by using
operators . Operators link your search terms and define the relationship between them. This
enables more accurate searching and therefore more relevant results being returned. It also
saves you time as you do not have to carry out numerous similar searches where just one or
two search terms are changed each time.
Use AND to narrow your search.

Using AND between your search terms narrows your search as it instructs the database that
all your search terms must appear (in any order).

For example: semiotics AND drama

This will only return results where both words are present. Because all search terms must
be present, using AND makes the search more focused.
In some (but not all) databases and search engines the AND is implied so if you enter
multiple words the database will search for results which contain all/both words.

Use OR to broaden your search.

Using OR between search terms broadens your results as any or all your search terms can
be present.
For example: religion OR belief
This will return results where, either one or both words are present. It is extremely useful
for finding synonyms or related concepts. Using OR enables you to carry out several
similar searches in one go, saving you time.

Use NOT to narrow your search.

Using NOT narrows your search as it instructs the database to ignore results that contain
particular words.

For example: social media NOT twitter

This will return results that include social media but do not include twitter. NOT tends to be
used less than the AND and OR operators. Use it with care as you may exclude useful
articles which cover a range of topics of relevance to you.

How to create an effective search query? (the right search terms)

To use Library databases to find relevant documents for your research, you will need to
create what is known as a search statement. A search statement is not an actual sentence or
sentence fragment; rather, it is a set of keywords connected by Boolean operators and
formatted in a very specific way.

Step 1: Identify relevant keywords,

Once you have a research question, the next step of the research process is to identify the
key concepts or main ideas from your research question. These key concepts and main
ideas, usually nouns, are generally referred to as keywords. Keywords can be individual
words as well as phrases that are composed of multiple words. The more specific your
keywords, the better chance you will have of finding relevant sources for your research.

For example, if your research question was "What is the relationship between
telecommuting and employee retention?", the key concepts are telecommuting and
retention.
Note that relationship is not a key concept of the research question since this word would
not have to appear in a document for the document to be useful for your research. To help
ensure that you retrieve as many relevant documents as possible on your research topic, the
keywords that you select should reflect concepts that must be mentioned in a document for
the document to be relevant to your research. The keywords that you identify will serve as
the basis for your search statement.
Step 2: Identify related terms for the keywords,
You will not know whether your keywords will work well in a database or search engine
until you are searching. In fact, a particular keyword may work well in one resource and
poorly in another. Therefore, it is important to be flexible and to try a variety of keywords
and keyword combinations if you are not getting the results you are looking for.

Once you have identified the keywords from your research question, the next step is to
identify related terms for the keywords. Doing this will help to ensure that your searches
are as thorough as possible and that you will not miss out on finding sources that are
relevant to your topic. Because different authors may use different words to describe the
same concept, you should try to think of different ways in which the concept could be
expressed and use those words in your searches.

Keep in mind, though, that not all keywords will have appropriate synonyms. This is
perfectly normal; there are some concepts that are only commonly expressed with certain
words or phrases. Do not be concerned if you cannot come up with a synonym for each of
your keywords.

Also note that the best terms to use for your searches may not be exact synonyms of your
keywords; depending on your research topic, it may sometimes make sense to include terms
that are broader or narrower than your original keyword. For example, if your research
topic involved cars, it might make sense to include the broader term vehicles as well as
terms like cars, autos, automobiles, and so forth. Or if your research topic had to do with
the military, it might make sense to use the names of specific branches of the military
(Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, etc.) in addition to terms like military and armed forces.

Additionally, it may sometimes make sense to include antonyms of your keywords. For the
research question mentioned earlier, for instance ("What is the relationship between
telecommuting and employee retention?"), it would be a good idea to search for terms such
as turnover. After all, some authors may approach the question from the flip side, asking
what effect telecommuting has on employee turnover. So, including antonyms in your
search statement where appropriate will also help to ensure that your searches are
comprehensive.

Finally, note that when choosing additional terms to use in your searches, you should only
choose terms that are likely to appear in articles about your topic. For example, although
information supervision is a term that is technically synonymous with knowledge
management, it is not a term that is likely to appear in any article, and therefore it would
not be useful in your searches.
There are many ways of finding appropriate synonyms, antonyms, and related terms to use
in your searches. For example, you may find such terms in dictionaries. You may also come
across useful terms while conducting background research on your topic.
The below list shows some of the synonyms, antonyms, and related terms that could be
used when creating a search statement to answer the research question mentioned earlier,
"What is the relationship between telecommuting and employee retention?"

ecommuting ention
Teleworking Turnover
working from home
working at home

Step 3: Combine keywords and related terms into a search statement,

Incorporating Boolean operators, parentheses, quotation marks, truncation/wildcard
characters, and/or proximity operators into your search statement as appropriate will help
ensure that your search results are relevant to your research topic.

Using Boolean operators

As previously explained A basic search statement consists of all your keywords and related
terms, along with Boolean operators such as AND, OR, and NOT.

Using more than one type of Boolean operator

Whenever you create a search statement that includes more than one type of Boolean
operator, you will need to use parentheses in your search statement to indicate how your
search statement should be processed. Parentheses are generally used to group similar
concepts together, so you will most often put parentheses around terms separated by OR.
For example, to find articles that discuss the relationship between telecommuting and
employee retention, your search statement could look like this:

(telecommuting OR teleworking OR "working from home" OR "working at home")

AND (retention OR turnover)

Searching for phrases

As suggested by the search statement shown above, whenever you want to find documents
that contain a phrase consisting of two or more words, you should put quotation marks
around the entire phrase, since this tells the database to search for the words as a phrase
(that is, appearing together and in the order given) rather than as separate keywords.

In many databases, if quotation marks are not placed around phrases of two or more words,
the database will treat the phrase as if the Boolean operator AND appeared between the
terms, which could possibly lead to irrelevant search results. For example, if you searched
for human resources rather than for "human resources", your search results could
potentially include documents that have nothing to do with human resources. (You could,
for example, find an article that says, "Earth's valuable resources, such as trees and clean
water, are being depleted quickly. The human effect on the planet has been profound." The
terms human and resources both appear in the article, but the article is not about human
resources.)

Quotation marks should not be placed around individual keywords. It is only necessary to
place quotation marks around phrases of two or more words.

Searching for variations of words and phrases

Rather than having to think of and type out all possible variations of a search word or
phrase, you can use a truncation symbol or wildcard character to retrieve documents that
contain different variations of the word or phrase.

Wildcard characters generally are used to stand for exactly one letter. In a database that
uses? as a wildcard character, a search for wom?n would retrieve articles that contain
woman and/or women.

Truncation symbols are used to replace zero or more letters in a word. In a database that
uses * as a truncation symbol, a search for manag* would retrieve articles that contain
manage, manager, managers, managing, management, and so on -- all words that begin
with the root manag.

Consult the "help" or "search tips" page of the database you are using to see whether it
allows wildcard and/or truncation searching and to see which symbols it uses. The use of
truncation in a search statement will broaden your search, increasing the number of results
returned by your search.
It is therefore important to truncate search terms appropriately, so that your search will be
neither too narrow nor too broad. If you wanted to find articles that contain some form of
the word plagiarism, for example, it would not be a good idea to search for plag* since your
search could then retrieve irrelevant documents containing words such as plague. But it also
would not be a good idea to search for plagiaris* since your search would then exclude
documents containing plagiarize, plagiarized, and so on. To find articles about plagiarism,
then, it would be best to search for plagiar.*
If the search statement noted above were revised to include truncation where appropriate, it
would look like this:

(telecommut* OR telework* OR "work* from home" OR "work* at home") AND

(retention OR turnover)

Note that most databases allow you to use a truncation symbol in a phrase that appears
between quotation marks. So, a search for "work* from home" will find documents that
contain the phrase work from home as well as documents that contain the phrase working
from home, worked from home, etc.

Summary of steps for creating effective search statements,

o Identify the keywords (usually nouns) that reflect the main concepts of your research
question. Keywords may be individual words (e.g., retention as well as short phrases (e.g.,
working from home.)
o Identify appropriate related terms for your keywords. Related terms may include
synonyms as well as antonyms (e.g., turnover as well as retention).
o Create a search statement that incorporates all your keywords and related terms. Use
Boolean/proximity operators, parentheses, quotation marks, and truncation/wildcard
characters as needed.
o Use quotation marks to designate a phrase of two or more words (e.g., "working from
home")
o Use truncation/wildcard characters to find different endings of a word stem or variant
spellings of a search term (e.g., "work* from home")
o Use Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) to connect search terms to define the
relationship between them (e.g., telecommut* OR "work* from home")
o Use proximity operators to specify how far apart search terms may appear from each
other in search results (e.g., work* n3 home)
o Use parentheses to group terms when your search statement includes more than one
type of search operator (e.g., (telecommut* OR telework* OR work* at home) AND
(retention OR turnover)
Evaluating the credibility of web sources

Anyone, in theory, can publish on the Web; therefore, it is imperative for users of the Web
to develop a critical eye to evaluate the credibility of Internet information. Searching for
sources on the WWW involves using a search engine, a directory, or some combination of
these two. Because there is so much information on the Web, good and bad, finding what
you want is not an exact science and can be time consuming.

These guidelines are to help you become familiar with various types of Web resources and
the reliability of the information.

1. Is there any evidence that the author of the Web information has some authority in the
field about which she or he is providing information?
2. What are the author's qualifications, credentials, and connections to the subject?
3. With what organization or institution is the author associated?
4. Does the author have publications in peer reviewed publications, on the Web?
5. Are there clues that the author/s are biased? For example, is he/she selling or promoting
a product?
6. Is the Web information current? If there are several out-of-date links that do not work
or old news, what does this say about the credibility of the information?
7. Does the information have a complete list of works cited, which reference credible,
authoritative sources?
8. Can the subject you are researching be fully covered with WWW sources or should
print sources provide balance?
9. On what kind of Web site does the information appear?
Here are some types of Web sites:
 Personal Home Pages.
 Special interest sites.
 Professional sites.
 News and Journalistic sites.
 Commercial sites.
10. Deconstruct the URL to find out the source of the information.
Some Common Domain Names:
 .com; means Commercial
 .ac; means Academic
 .co; means Company
 .edu; means Education
 .gov; means Government
 .mil; means Military
 .net; means Network
 .org; means Organization

Working with international research databases

he Internet is an incredible source of a wide variety of information, and there are some
excellent search engines available to help us find this information. Google is one of the
most popular and effective.
There is a difference between websites and published scholarly articles. Websites can be
anything: a sales tool, a personal blog, promotion of a cause, etc. Google was designed to
find websites. Lots of websites provide valuable information. Very few websites provide
access to scholarly research.
The launch of Google Scholar (GS) marked the beginning of a revolution in the scientific
information market. This search engine, unlike traditional databases, automatically indexes
information from the academic web. Its ease of use, together with its wide coverage and
fast indexing speed, have made it the first tool most scientists currently turn to when they
need to carry out a literature search. Additionally, the fact that its search results were
accompanied from the beginning by citation counts, as well as the later development of
secondary products which leverage this citation data (such as GS Metrics and Citations),
made many scientists wonder about its potential as a source of data for bibliometric
analyses.
Google Scholar

The GS provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place,
you can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts, and
court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories,
universities, and other web sites. GS helps you find relevant work across the world of
scholarly research.

https://scholar.google.com/

Press here
to sign in

Figure 17: Google Scholar Website

To create an account on GS you must have an account on Gmail. Hence, you may login
using your Gmail as shown in the figure below, or if you don’t have a gmail account create
new one.

Write your
email and
Password

After writing
your email
press next

If you do not
have Gmail
account

Figure 18: Google Scholar Login window

After login to your gmail account you can fill in your details in the “My Profile”, hence,
search for your articles and select it to be enrolled under your name. After that every article
containing your name will be automatically alerted to your account and you will be asked
to include in your articles.

Your gmail account

Fill in your
information

After finishing
press next for
articles and
settings

Figure 19: Edit your GS profile

Features of Google Scholar

 Search all scholarly literature from one convenient place

 Explore related works, citations, authors, and publications
 Locate the complete document through your library or on the web
 Keep up with recent developments in any area of research
 Check who is citing your publications, create a public author profile

How are documents ranked?

Google Scholar aims to rank documents the way researchers do, weighing the full text of
each document, where it was published, who it was written by, as well as how often and
how recently it has been cited in other scholarly literature.
Smart ways to use Google scholar

Google's customized search engine and tool for students and academics. Scholar allows you
to search journals, save sources to your personal library and get quick citations. Scholar is
designed to return a combination of the most relevant and most cited pages, meaning you
will get what has been cited most by other academics (which are usually the most
informative, reliable sources). A quick guide for a smart use of GS,

Search for journal articles.

The first thing you need to know about GS is that it works essentially like a regular google
search engine, to get the best results, you should be as specific as possible.
Keep in mind that Scholar can search both the title and article content for search terms,
even if the content is locked to subscribers. Once you have navigated to a results page, you
will see information about the author, publisher, and date for each entry.

Write your
Search query
here

Figure 20: Search an article

You will also see the location of the entry (for example, Google Books or JSTOR) and a
link that says, "other versions," from which you can navigate to other webpages on which
the article has appeared. A link on the left side of the page will link directly to the article
and indicated its format (HTML, PDF, etc.).

Build (and search) libraries.

As you look through the results, you can save articles to your library. Once you add
something to the library, you can view a comprehensive info sheet of the article, including
the abstract, and put it under a label to organize it with similar sources. For book entries,
click "more," and you will see a link that reads "Library Search." This link will take you to
the Worldcat.org page for that book, from which you can enter your ZIP code and check if
you can find the book at your nearest library.
 Search query

Article

Click the
star to
save to
Library

Figure 21: GS search results

Press Here to
open menu

From the menu

Select My Library

Figure 22: GS full menu

 Your saved library

Article

Figure 23: Saved library options

Set up alerts.

For students researching current events or developing medical discoveries, keeping up with
the latest academic literature adds yet another task to an already difficult project. Scholar
gives you the option of setting up alerts when there are new results for a specific search
term (such as "Russia Ukraine conflict"), so you can stay updated when there are new
articles and books publish.

Press Here to
open menu

Select Alerts to
setup new alerts

Figure 24: GS alert setup

 Your research
queries

Email that will

receive the alerts

Press here
to save

Figure 26: Create new GS alert

Get quick citation.

Along with the other links under a GS search result, you will find the Cite button. A box
will pop up with citations in different formats based on the article type, which you can
easily copy and paste into a Word document or import into the citation managers that
Google links in the box (i.e. Endnote).

Cite icon

Figure 27: Get quick citation