Skills in using a search engine

Developing search skills - skill in formulating an efficient query - one which makes fewer false positives (retrieving irrelevant links) and fewer false negatives (missing relevant links)

see Errors in Discrimination

• use the boolean operators - and or - ( for not)
• use ~ for synonyms
• use quote to search for a whole phrase
• use all your languages (if only!)
• dont forget about cached pages when pages not found
• advanced search - e.g for file types
• define: to search for term definitions

Resources

• WikiBook on Search