56 effective ways for Students to use Google Search

Here are 56 Google search tricks for all types of students, whether you’re in high school, pursuing an online degree, or are just trying to brush up on your own research skills. There many features available with Google Search which help students to narrow down their search for specific material and they can get more accurate results.

This list is created by Onlinedegrees.net site. Some of the points are stated here.

Advanced Search

When you’re searching for specific material, use Advanced Search to plug in qualifiers that will narrow down your search. Here are more Advanced Search tricks to learn.

1. Search within a domain: Only let Google bring up .edu or .gov sites, for example, if you want primary sources or authoritative information.
2. Select file type: This very handy qualifier is useful when you need to quickly find certain types of data or information for a presentation. You can choose to limit results to .pdf, .xls, Google Earth, .doc, .rtf, and more.
3. : If you’re looking to use open source material or unlicensed material, this is a good trick to make sure you’re on track.
4. Exclude terms: Use a minus sign right before a word (-example) to eliminate it from your search results.
5. Wildcard search: The * key acts as a wildcard in Google search that can be helpful with early stages of research. Google gives the example [Obama voted * on the * bill] to learn about Obama’s votes on several different bills.
6. Blogs: After conducting a search, click on the “Blogs” button under “Show Options” to view only blog posts on the subject.
7. Limit synonyms: Did you know that Google sometimes finds results that don’t match your search exactly, but that use synonyms instead? Type in the + sign before a search to eliminate synonyms and use your words only.
8. Language: For foreign language or international business or policy classes, or if you just have to have a primary source, use this selector to change language settings.
9. Where your keywords show up: When you’re looking for very specific information or for a specific kind of source, you can use this feature to limit where the keywords show up in your search: the URL, title of the article, in links to the page, or just anywhere in the page.
10. Find pages that link to the page: Use this feature when you want to do a little more digging. You’ll stumble across blog posts, journal articles and news stories that offer more in-depth commentary.
11. Quotation marks: Put quotation marks around a phrase to let Google know you want that exact phrase in that order.

Read more Google Search tricks

http://www.onlinedegrees.net/blog/2010/56-google-search-tricks-for-students/