How good are you at Google?

[rubybeth]

How good are you at googling things, really? I am taking the online course, Advanced Power Searching with Google, right now for my work (I work in a library) and am amazed at how little I knew about searching using Google. I am also going back and viewing portions of the Power Searching with Google course, which is archived. I think PSers would find the info. about image search very handy!

http://www.powersearchingwithgoogle.com


I have also been doing the new Google trivia game, A Google A Day: http://agoogleaday.com (must login) and it's been a good test of my skills, as well.

 

[zoebartlett]

Apparently I'm not very good at googling things. I didn't know an advanced search option existed. Thanks for the links, Rubybeth!

 

[aviastar]

I'm sure there is a lot more I could learn, but I found Google Scholar really helpful when I was writing a thesis. If I needed to find an article referenced in something I was reading, I could pop the authors and date in and it generally lead me right to the publication- often with the full article!

 

[sonnyjane]

Not to toot my own horn, but I'm actually quite good. Often times my family, friends, or co-workers will come to me when they can't find something because they know I'll track it down. They joke that I should be a private investigator

 

[VRBeauty]

Power search sounds like fun! I'll have to follow up on that! Thanks for sharing this, rubybeth!

 

[HopeDream]

I leafed through the power searching course and it all seemed common knowledge to me, but I've been googling for about 15 years now, and I'm a bit of a search ninja. I'd be interested to see what's in the advanced power searching course.

 

[texaskj]

Eeeeexcellent, as Mr. Burns would say.
But I've got an advantage. Part of getting a journalism degree is learning how to sniff things out. My whole family uses me to find stuff. Most people have no idea how much information is out there.

 

[rubybeth]

If any of you do the Advanced Power Searching course, I'd be interested to know what you think and if you learned anything new. I know I did! The final 2 questions in order to get the certificate were tricky, I thought. I eventually got both answers, because I just had to know if I was right. I have also been using a reverse dictionary for more things, and though I knew they existed, I didn't realize how helpful they could be when searching. A lot of skill in searching is corroborating information and really, just fact-checking and making sure your sources are reliable. That's one thing that I wish more people did, especially before posting stupid things on Facebook.