Smarter Internet Searching

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Smarter Internet Searching

• Boolean Operators

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What are Boolean operators?

• The terms AND, OR, NOT when used in Internet
  searches are called Boolean operators

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Why do we call them Boolean?

• George Boole was an English mathematician who
  lived from 1815-1864
• He invented a branch of mathematics called
  Boolean algebra
• His theories formed the basis for using Boolean
  operators in Internet searches

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How do you use Boolean operators?

• Using AND
• Using AND narrows a search by combining terms it
  will bring back documents that use both the
  search terms you put in,
• for example Portland AND Oregon

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• Using OR
• Using OR broadens a search to include results
  that contain either of the words you type in. OR
  is a good tool to use when there are several
  common spellings or synonyms of a word, for
  example
• Theatre OR theater

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• Using NOT
• Using Not will narrow a search by keeping out
  certain search terms. NOT brings back documents
  that contain one, but not the other,of the search
  terms you enter, for example
• Jazz NOT Music

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Heres another way to think about it
Search results are shown in green
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Using Or
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Using NOT
Diagrams from http//tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/d
atabases/search/booleansearch.html
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Mini Quiz

• Which will get you the MOST results
• AND
• OR
• NOT

Answer B. OR
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Were going to play a little game to practice
some more.

1. Red shirts

2. Red shirts AND White shirts
What happened when we added the AND?
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• 3. Blue Shirts

4. Blue shirts OR white shirts
What happened when we added the OR?
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• 5. Red Shirts

6. Red Shirts NOT wearing a sweatshirt
What happened when we added the NOT?
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Shortcuts

• Not all search engines use Boolean operators in
  the same way
• You can use shortcuts in Google
• for AND
• - for NOT

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Lets practice some more together
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Now youre going to try it on your own! Try the
SCS search to find out about SCS history. Try it
four times, each time using one of the Google
tricks to narrow things down. Use smithtown
christian school, then smithtown christian school
and history, smithtown christian school or
history then smithtown christian school not
history. Note how many hits you get each time.
Send me an e-mail through new.schoolnotes.com
explaining what you did each time, and how it
narrowed or broadened the results. E-mail your
results to pgleason_at_smithtownchristianschool.org
PPT adapted by Miss Gleason 4/18/11 from
unknown source