Monday, 12 March 2012

Using symbols in searching...

This half term we have been looking at different ways to improve our searching. Here are some more tips!

Your first challenge today...

First word is treated as more important, then the second, then the third etc.

Choose up to 3 words that might be helpful when searching for information about your character, eg, 'role of women' 'WW2'. Put them into google. How many search results are returned? Now change the order, have the search results changed? Which is more effective?

Challenge 2...

Using different symbols in Google searching can mean different things...



  • Using a tilde (~) before a search to return synonym results. ~large lakes will find results for great lakes as well

  • Using an (*) to get Google to fill in the blank. * city in the world returns the largest, hottest, most expensive etc. Can be used before, after or in the middle of a phrase

  • Using a – (minus) to exclude words. Southampton –football would remove all references to Southampton Football club

Have a go at using these symbols to help with your searching about different Home Front roles. Were any useful? Contribute your thoughts below...

29 comments:

  1. Thank you for this, Miss Norris! It helped me ALOT with my reasearch!!! From Faith

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  2. when changing the words round i got the same top 3 ansers. (i used ww2 womens roles)

    for the ~ i got lots of words for big infront of battles. (i put (well mrs norris put) big battles WW2) words like major , big , large , famous , great. and so on...

    for the * (i used world war*) it came up with ww1 ww2 ww3 and wwz

    when i finally used - (i put world war -1)it came up with ww2

    thanks for reading!! maddie :D

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  3. Hello miss Norris
    These bits of info really helped me out.Although I got stuck I soon worked out that make sure you try things in every possible way before you ask for help. So once you helped me it happend again but I kept trying and I ended up not needing help atall.
    Thanks
    Victoria

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  4. I think it was relly cool using the symbols and my favourite one is the minus and the star. Because they came up with more then the swigaly line and had better infomation.When i put in ww2 i had less info if I put in the swigaly line then the star,minus.Dylan!

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  5. for the changing the words around i didn`t get far with it but with the tilde i got a load of great answers although i didnt get much with the * with the minus it worked great.



    by chris

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  6. I have tested ~ and it did not come up with any synonyms. Also i have tested the little * (star) and it worked a bit better than the ~. And finally i last tested the - and it did not work that well.
    I did not find any of these helpfull that much. p.s i forgot the diffrent ordered words and it came up with the same sight.
    p.p.s I tride the ~ again and i found out that it did work you just ned to put a word infront of unicorn for e.g ~fluffy unicorn then it will work.

    by Rachel ;P

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  7. I found that the minis botton was helpful but the star was awful didnt do stuf also the word order was very helpful

    TOP TIPS: put the minis button next to the word you dont want to use

    by kieran :D

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  8. i found out that you have to leave a space beetween the - EG: ww2 -wardens.


    by epic adam + awsome ruben

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  9. the * did not work for me but the - work very well and helped me alot. When i put photos of WW2 evacuees - battles for kids. It came up with some good photos but when i put images of WW2 evacuees not battles for kids it came up with around 5 good photos. from luke

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  10. I found out alot.
    For the first one (world war 2*) it came up with loads of facts.

    There was loads of things I found out.

    Thanks for the lesson!

    Connie

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  11. Some of the sybols worked like - and * but i found that the ~ did not but the rearragement of words did e.g: when i typed in 'evacuees in ww2' it came up whith the same web pages as 'ww2 evacuees' . Some of these things are usefull in searching but others not so mutch . Thank you for teaching us this miss norris.
    Harry!!!

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  12. I found that if I swap the words around in challenge 1, there is no difference.
    For the ~, I find it not handy and a bit useless.
    for the* it would be a bit handy if you missed ifomation but it did not help me that much.
    the - is very hand because it saves me looking other useless web sites.
    jack

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  13. I Found that using the minus sometimes works but sometimes doesnt as if you put ww2 -anne frank it just came up with more anne frank but if you put something different it would work.Then i tried it again like this -"anne frank" and it worked. The star worked as well same with the ~ but it was funny with the first challenge because at first i put Anne frank ww2 then i put ww2 Anne frank and it got different answers than the first. Emily!

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  14. I like the minus one but i did'nt use they other two because i did'nt relly need any synonyms or anything to tell me wich hotest contrys were but i'm sure they will come in handy soon.
    by amazing alex

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  15. Dear Miss Norris (and all readers),
    I found this challege quite fun, and experimental. For my speech bubble, I was a warden.


    I tried to use the - for Warden, but it didn't exactly work. So I then put Cheese -blue, and started to hope that google wouldn't come up with any blue cheese. And... IT DIDN'T! It worked splendidly.

    I then tried to use the * for air raids. It came up with lots of different results, and it worked. It came up with things like: Worst air raid, Longest Air raid, slowest air raid... And you get the idea.



    Then there was the ~ (Or as some people like to call it the wiggle :p). This was amazing! When I typed in: Youngest warden, it came up with lots of other things such as: Oldest Warden, Recent Warden... And it goes on forever.



    Thank you! I'll take this with me to Secondary school, and use it in the fuure. Faith

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  16. When i first tried the theory i thought that it would not work but now i am quite confadent with it!!

    The only thing that i am not confadent with the task is putting the star with it.

    I really like the ~ and the - bit because it is really cool! When i tried the - bit it did not do it first time.Eg "ww2 evacue -train journy" it just cut out the train insted of the train journy. Finally i found out that you need to put speech marks round it "". Miss Norris i enjoyed this task!!
    from joe

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  17. I found out that when i put children in ww2* it came up with lots of diffrent things.When i put -evacuee children it came up with the same things apart from 5.I used ~evacuees in ww2 it came up with more diffrent thing but there were ones that were the same. from beckie

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  18. Hi Miss Norris - Again

    I just wanted to say thankyou again. Although I didn't get time to use the *. I tryed the tilde but it didn't work witch I am used too. Because i had to keep asking you. I also didn't have time to use:
    ()

    victoria

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  19. For the~I got lots of things for the women'land army and sone good words. For the-I got so many diffrent thinds to do with the women's land army.

    By Serena

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  20. When changing word around i got the same top anwers that i needed

    For the ~ i got alot of answers that i needed (i typed in ~ WW2 Womens Land Army) and it got me to the answers i needed again!

    The * i typed in WW2 womens land army and it got me to Womens land army during WW2 and it was GREAT!

    And finally - i typed in Womens land army - "during WW2" and it came up with WW2 womens land army!

    Cantarose :) :D :P

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  21. This is my search results.
    When i put the - in it took away ebay amozon and wikipedia. When I jumbled the words around it came up with more answers. Then what i had before eg instead of womans land army i put womens jobs ww2. I didnt quite get enought time to do this one. When I used the * it came up with loads of different websites for womens land army ww2.

    by Keelie

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  22. When i typed in homeguard in ww2 it was ok but when i typed in homeguard in ww2- other things in ww2 it came up with what i was looking for.
    Daniel

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  23. *and- are OK but don't rely on them.~ is not very good as I got random rusults.With - speech marks don't realy work.

    ben

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  24. I tested the ~ * and the -. The ~ did not come with any synonyms! The - I am confident with because i works and i tryed the speep marks i is very good and the * works!

    By Troy

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  25. When i put in womens land army with - in front of battles i did not come accross anything to do with battles.

    When i changed the words around i got more answers.

    I did not get time to use the star.But if i had time i think it might of been usefull.

    thanks Alice

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  26. For the moving round letters i got the same WEB SITE the 3 times i swithced the letters.Also for the - i got lots of things for the womens land army.I got millions of diffrent words for the womens land army.I did not have time to do the *.

    amber!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  27. 1st Challenge
    I put my words in a different order, yet it still gave me more or less the same top 3 answers!

    2nd Challenge
    For the - if you have 2 words put " " around them.
    For the * it gave me loads of answers.
    For the ~ it was just weird!

    I like using these!

    From Amy

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  28. When I tried to get a synonym for hard work I put the ~ in front of hard with a space between them it didn't come up with any.
    Sadly I didn't get time to use the *.
    I did use the - and it did work.
    I didn't know what the symbols ment and now I do!!!
    By Zoe

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  29. I found out that the - was muh more helpfulle then the others im sure that they will soon come in handy.

    by jessie :)

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