Google Tips & Shortcuts
From the Advanced Google search page, limit results to language, file format (e.g., PDF), occurrence
location (e.g., in title), and domain (e.g., .edu, .gov)
Google operators:
* the -operator excludes all results that include this search term, as in flowers -author:flowers
* phrase search only returns results that include this exact phrase, as in "as you like it"
* the OR operator or the “|” (pipe) returns results that include either of your search terms, as in stock call
OR put
* the ~ operator gives you results for the term you enter as well as for synonyms of that term, as in ~raptors
(includes information about birds of prey, etc.)
* the * operator is used as a wildcard for an entire word such as three * mice or george washington was
born in *
Advanced Google operators:
intitle:
Find pages that contain a particular word in the title,
as in intitle:stem cells
site:
Search only one website, as in admission
site:www.ucsd.edu
Search within a range of numbers, as in dvd
player $100…150
inurl:
Find websites that contain a particular word in the
URL, as in inurl:ucsd
intext:
Find websites that contain a particular word in the
body portion, as in intext:biomedbits
inanchor:
Find websites that contain a particular word in the
anchor (an anchor is text that gives information
and/or identifies a hyperlink on a page), as in
inanchor:dog
link:
Find pages that link to a particular website, as in
link:www.ucsd.edu
cache:
Find Google’s cached version of the site, as in
cache:cnn.com
filetype:
Find results that have a certain extension (.doc, .ppt,
.pdf, .jpg, etc.), as in filetype:ppt microsoft
access
related:
Find websites related to a particular website, as in
related:www.google.com
info:
Find information about a page, as in
info:www.ucsd.edu
phonebook:
Find the phone number for a person or a business,
as in phonebook:john smith ca or john smith
san diego (include name and state or name and
city)
define:
To find definitions of a term on the web, as in
define:apoptosis
Additional tips:
* Word order matters: Put the most important terms first
* Repetition matters: Entering a word multiple times will tend to produce results with more of that term in the
document, and will also change the order of your results
* Case does not matter: You do not need to capitalize anything
* Leave out common words such as “a,” “the,” “to,” etc.: They will be ignored
* Truncation is not allowed: Do not use the * at the end of a word or partial word
* Google can be used as a calculator using the +, -, *, and / symbols, as in 45 + 39
* Google can be used as a converter, as in 220 lb to kg
* Specialized Google services are also available (see "Google: Specialized Search Tools and Services"handout) Google Scholar tips & Shortcuts
Google Scholar: http://scholar.google.com
Use the Advanced Google Scholar search page. Use the options to limit the results to:
o A specific publication title
o Desired date or date range
o Subject areas
Specialized Search strategies:
friedman regression – author and keyword search combination
"jh friedman" – searching by an author’s last name and initials
author:"d knuth", author:"de knuth", or author:"donald e knuth" – several ways to search by author
author:flowers – specifying that you are doing an author search
flowers -author:flowers – specifying that you are doing a keyword search and do not want the word as an
author’s name
Other search tips (also used in Google Web):
o The "-" operator excludes all results that include this search term, as in flowers -author:flowers
o Phrase search only returns results that include this exact phrase, as in "as you like it"
o The "OR" operator or the “|” (pipe) returns results that include either of your search terms, as in stock call OR put
o The "intitle:" operator as in intitle:mars only returns results that include your search term in the document's title.
Look up a specific article to see who has cited it – look for “Cited by...” in the results
Certain features such as searching by publication title and restricting by year are only available from the Advanced Scholar Search page. Keep in mind that Google Scholar is still in beta and is not completely reliable yet.
