Information Fluency Project

Search Queries Unpacked

I'm at the Illinois Educational Technology Conference in Springfield, IL waiting for my presentation videos to upload.  Going over the wireless network is excruciatingly slow, so I thought I'd check my blog stats.

One of the free services I use with this blog is sitemeter. One of the most interesting features of this service is "referrals:" the url where readers were just before coming to this blog. I haven't tallied the numbers, but it appears that about half of those drawn to this blog arrive as a result of a Google search.

For example, here's the url that brought one of the last readers to the Internet Search Challenge blog:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=internet%20searches%20for%20students&rlz=1R2ADSA_enUS343&aq=f&oq=
If you unpack that url (or click it), you can tell what query the person used to find the blog: internet searches for students. You can see the blog listed in the search results for that query. Currently it's #8 although that can change as time goes on.

That's a pretty good query, even though the stop word "for" is unnecessary. Here's a larger sampling of recent queries:

Detecting biases in writing
challenges searching by keywords
detecting bias activity
query two common interpretations internet
challenges in searching with keywords
optimal number of search terms
how has getting info easier with internet
"they formed an angel band" lyrics

Several observations occur to me in unpacking these queries.

First, even though queries are not formatted particularly well, they still led to relevant information (I'm assuming this blog was relevant to the original intent of the searcher!). Better queries are possible, but if natural language queries work, isn't it just being anal to insist that more elegant queries be used?

Second, and closely related, there are no failed queries in this list. Everyone came to this blog as a result of a query.  No matter what I might insist makes a good or optimal query, a lot of variation and clutter (unnecessary terms) still produces effective results. One of the techniques I like to use with students is to display a list of queries they propose for a specific type of search. One way to collect their queries is to create a Google form and have them post their query to the form. You can display the results in a spreadsheet without names attached to the queries. That works pretty well because there are almost always queries that will not work. It's informative for students to see how others create queries. Better queries are pretty easy to identify--which I think you can do with the list above. However, poor queries can be effective too, so it's always a good idea to try the queries to see if they connect to the information that was sought.

Third, looking at queries reveals trends. Looking at more than 30 queries shows me what topics brought people here. There's quite a bit of interest in detecting bias, which will prompt me to develop more resources on bias/objectivity in evaluation. If you have a blog, I recommend you unpack the queries that brought readers to you. You may be surprised.

Basic vs Advanced Searching

You probably don't use advanced search options very often.

You're not alone. Advanced searchers--such as the members of the search group at Google--use just the basic search functions more than 95% of the time. In practice, no more than 1 search in 20 requires special or Boolean operators other than AND, which is nothing more than using the space key.

You might expect that very experienced searchers would use specialized search tools more than that. Knowing how to use special operators is only a small part of becoming a search expert.

After leading search strategy workshops for a couple of years, I came to realize how little I depended on anything other than good keywords. Boolean operators (except for AND) are not needed most of the time. In fact, unless you really know how to use them, they either limit your search in ways you don't want or yield results you don't expect.

So the first point is that you really don't need to use them. This goes for "", OR, NOT, inurl: and a host of others. Concentrate on the quality of your keywords; that's what does the heavy lifting.

The second point is to know when you really do need an operator. My advice is never to use double quotes ("") around a phrase unless you know for certain that is the exact string you need to query. "Carl Heine" will return all the references to my name, but won't return any occurences of Heine, Carl (which is just as likely) or Carl A. Heine which includes my middle initial. Quotes is a good device for cutting down on the number of keywords in a longer query, for example: bison statistics 2008 "North America" (when you are confident that North America will be included in the information you want).

The OR operator is helpful when you want to cut down on the length of a query and believe there are multiple terms (usually rival nouns or adjectives) that might be in the information. For example: bison statistics OR population OR research 2008 "North America" That's still a four term query.

If you've discovered a time when NOT was essential to a search, let me know. Most of the time it eliminates results that may be valuable without giving you a chance to see them.

I don't believe I've ever needed to use inurl:, intitle: or any of the other in_: operators to find information. Keywords get the job done quite nicely.

Can you be an expert searcher without knowing operators? Over 95% of time, yes.

The real advanced part of being an expert searcher relies on the ability to use words sparingly and recognize words that are more powerful than others in the context being searched. That takes quite a bit of experience using words and predicting how they may be used in the type of search being conducted. For most children that presents a real challenge. They will need help while their linguistic skills mature.

Read the comments for more...

Is Reading Believing?

Unfortunately for many students, reading is believing.

There could have been a time when information that appeared in print may have been trustworthy--thanks to editors and (hopefully) experts who reviewed it before it went to press--but that's no longer a safe assumption.

Because of the Internet, the reader has become the editor.

Before an evaluation can be made, one needs to know something about the author, publisher, references, or content; probably a combination of these things.

So here's an author challenge that's appropriate for students. Look at this blog: The Future is Green. The content is about sustainability, energy, the green movement, etc. But can the views expressed be believed? Knowing some facts about the author (and possibly checking out those facts) provides some perspective on the author's words.
Try this or have your students try it:

1. Locate the author's name (not hard)
2. Find information about the author (requires browsing)
3. Determine if the author knows what he is talking about, based on his experience, education, associations, accomplishments, etc.
4. Fact-check information about the author. Having another source (other than the author) confirm what the author says about himself is always a good idea.

So, should the author be believed? Why or why not?

Sesame Street Challenge

As you probably know, Sesame Street is 40 years old. Here's a challenge to test your ability to find reference information about the show.

On what show did Ernie trick Bert into saying, "I ate the sandbox?" Provide the number of the show.

Before you start, think about a search strategy. There's lots to think about here:

• What keywords are provided?
• What keywords are good as is?
• How important is that phrase?
  
• What words are not needed?
• What words may be needed that aren't given? (this is always the hardest part of the strategy and may rely on seeing results first).
• Who might know the answer (where would an expert put the information)?
• How do I get close enough to "home in" on the information?
• How can I check the credibility of the answer?

Thinking about how to search is often lost in the activity of searching. Everyone makes choices about terms, operators and where to look. What choices are you making?

Find the Sculpture

I'm taking a few days off from work after cataract surgery.

While trying out some glasses for reading--my distance vision was 20/20 the day after the surgery!--I came across some interesting finds. One of them is this magnetic sculpture:




Warning: some sites that have embedded this video may contain objectionable material for school-aged children.

There's no explanation on the site above about the sculpture, how it works, who created it or where the video was filmed or if this thing exists at all. That's the challenge: let's say you'd like to know where you can see this sculpture for yourself. Where is it located?

Use your search skills to track down the geographic location of this apparent marvel.

Challenge level: Easy.

Once you located the hyponym* keyword, you'll find more videos!

* in this case, it's the scientific term for the material used in the sculpture.