Search Strategies

Finding official company information

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 17:55:57 +0100

Covers national and international resources, both free and priced, that provide access to official company information..

Subscription content available as an HTML article and PDF (4 Pages).

Full article at http://www.rba.co.uk/search/subscribers/OfficialCompany.shtml

Searching Twitter

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 19:17:47 +0000

Overview of the Twitter archive download options, search options for older tweets and Twitter search operators. (Free of charge).

http://www.rba.co.uk/search/TwitterSearch.shtml

Search tools for research information - kindle version

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 12:28:59 +0000

"Free search tools for research information" is now available as a Kindle version at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00C11XLVQ. The link takes you to Amazon.com. If your "local" Amazon is different you'll need to search for either the title or my name in the Kindle store.

From tourism to research information: how to change the emphasis of results

Sun, 24 Mar 2013 12:00:07 +0000

You want authoritative and quality information on your topic but you keep getting information on local tourist attractions or extremist views on the subject? This article offers some techniques for changing the type of information returned by the search engines, for example consumer vs. more research focused pages.

Subscription content available as an HTML article and PDF (5 Pages).

Full article at http://www.rba.co.uk/search/subscribers/Emphasis.shtml

Excluding sites from your search

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 09:12:20 +0000

This article looks at commands and tools for excluding sites from search results.

Subscription content available as an HTML article and PDF (3 Pages).

Full article at http://www.rba.co.uk/search/subscribers/ExcludeSites.shtml

Free search tools for finding research information

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 14:16:23 +0000

Now available as an ePUB

Also available as a PDF (42 Pages) as part of the Search Strategies subscription (http://www.rba.co.uk/search/purchase.shtml) or as a separate PDF article (£5.99) at

Covers five things you need to know about Google, advanced searching in Google, alternative web search tools, institutional repositories and specialist tools. 42 pages including table of contents, list of links and references. Created February 2013.

Links to search engines

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 09:42:28 +0000

Straightforward list to search engines on various topics. General search engines and research information have just been added. More will be added over the coming weeks. Available in the free area of the Search Strategies web pages.

http://www.rba.co.uk/search/links.shtml

Google Search Tips - updated

Sat, 23 Feb 2013 10:47:41 +0000

Free fact sheet

List of tips for taming Google that have been recommended by people who attended have attended Karen Blakeman's Google workshops.

http://www.rba.co.uk/search/GoogleSearchTips.shtml

Top Search Tips - updated

Sat, 23 Feb 2013 10:46:23 +0000

Free fact sheet

List of search tips contributed by participants of Karen Blakeman's advanced search workshops.

http://www.rba.co.uk/search/TopSearchTips.shtml

Advanced search commands for finding research information

Sun, 17 Feb 2013 12:28:42 +0000

Subscription content available as an HTML article and PDF (7 Pages).

Although there are several specialist tools such as Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic search and institutional repository search engines that concentrate on research information, sometimes it is better to keep things simple and use general search tools. This is certainly true if you are looking for a freely accessible copy of a paper or discussions about a particular piece of research. Also the specialist tools may not pick up grey literature (for example technical reports or white papers that have not been published in journals) or articles that have been archived in an author’s personal repository. Typing in just a few well chosen words into Google generally brings up at least a handful of relevant pages. Google does sometimes go overboard, though, when re-interpreting and personalising your results, or offers far too much information. This is when Google’s advanced search features come into their own.

Full article at AdvancedSearchResearchInfo.shtml

Science search tools

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 13:00:37 +0000

Subscription content available as an HTML article and PDF (9 Pages).

This article reviews selected free to use research and subject specific search services that are currently available on the web. Some of them concentrate on open access publications whilst others search a range of both free and priced services. Although the tools themselves are free to use you may have to pay to view the full text of some of the articles that they find.

Full article at http://www.rba.co.uk/search/subscribers/ScienceSearchTools.shtml

Microsoft Academic Search

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 16:15:12 +0000

Subscription content available as an HTML article and PDF (5 Pages).

Microsoft Academic Search is the main free competitor to Google Scholar. It covers journal articles, pre-prints, post-prints, conference proceedings, reports and white papers. It is free to use but the full text of some papers can only be viewed on payment of a fee to the original journal publisher.

Full article at http://www.rba.co.uk/search/subscribers/MicrosoftAcademicSearch.shtml

Google Scholar

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 09:09:29 +0000

Subscription content available as an HTML article and PDF (7 Pages).

Research information has been available in electronic form since the1970s when databases of journal articles became an essential part of discovering and for keeping up to date with new developments. Services called aggregators that provided a single point of access to multiple databases soon sprung up but access was priced and still is. Some aggregators offer priced pay-per-view tariffs but many others are only available via high cost annual subscriptions. This places much of the scientific literature out of the reach of small independent research teams and institutions with limited budgets.

In 2004 Google released Google Scholar, which provides a route to less costly pay-per-view options and, when available, free versions of scientific papers. Ever since its launch there has been debate as to whether it can be used as an alternative to the priced services.

Full article at http://www.rba.co.uk/search/subscribers/GoogleScholar.shtml

Institutional repositories

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 08:38:53 +0000

Subscription content available as an HTML article and PDF (2 Pages)

Many academic and research organisations now have electronic institutional repositories containing reports, articles and documentation generated by their research teams and members of staff. These repositories contain journal articles (both pre-prints and post-prints), theses, dissertations, project reports, presentations and audio-visual materials and many provide open access to research reports and articles. The open access information is picked up by search engines such as Google and many of the specialist search tools also cover repositories. If you do not have access to subscription databases such as Scopus or Web of Science, repositories can be a way of obtaining copies of articles that have been published in peer reviewed journals. Bear in mind, though, that the copy in the repository may be a pre-print and might differ from the final published version. Also charts, graphs and diagrams may be redacted in the repository copy because of copyright restrictions.

Google's main web search will find repository content and including advanced commands such as filetype:pdf in your search will focus the search. An easier and quicker way is to use Google Scholar ( http://scholar.google.com/ ) but this will also pick up links to priced versions of the article.

If you are only interested in institutional repositories try one or more of the tools that are specifically designed for the purpose.

Full article at http://www.rba.co.uk/search/subscribers/ir.shtml

Scirus

Wed, 9 Jan 2013 16:46:41 +0000

Scirus - science specific search engine. Subscription content available as an HTML article and PDF

http://www.rba.co.uk/search/subscribers/scirus.shtml

Five things you need to know about Google search

Fri, 14 Dec 2012 12:31:10 +0000

Subscription content available as an HTML article and PDF (8 Pages)

http://www.rba.co.uk/search/subscribers/GoogleFiveThings.shtml

How to make Google search for what you want - PowerPoint with notes and narration

karen.blakeman@rba.co.uk — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 09:01:01 +0100

Most of the time Google finds the information we need with minimal effort on our part. But it does not always get it right. This PowerPoint presentation gives some top tips on making Google run your search as you want it run. Covers Verbatim, the tilde, intext and daterange. Also available as a PDF and html article

Updated: 17th December 2012: How to make Google search for what you want - html article

karen.blakeman@rba.co.uk — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 10:12:34 +0000

Most of the time Google finds the information we need with minimal effort on our part. But it does not always get it right. This article gives some top tips on making Google run your search as you want it run. Covers Verbatim, the tilde, intext and daterange. Also available as a PDF and a PowerPoint presentation.Subscription required.

Updated 17th December 2012: How to make Google search for what you want - PDF article

karen.blakeman@rba.co.uk — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 10:12:02 +0000

Most of the time Google finds the information we need with minimal effort on our part. But it does not always get it right. This 5 page PDF article gives some top tips on making Google run your search as you want it run. Covers Verbatim, the tilde, intext and daterange. PowerPoint presentation also available. Subscription required.

Updated, 17th December 2012: How to make Google search for what you want - PowerPoint with notes

karen.blakeman@rba.co.uk — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 10:11:19 +0000

Google Custom Search Engine (CSE)

karen.blakeman@rba.co.uk — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 09:18:55 +0100

How to set up a Google CSE to search selected sites. Updated 25th August 2012. Free of charge

http://www.rba.co.uk/search/GoogleCSE.shtml

Search Tools Summary and Comparison Table

karen.blakeman@rba.co.uk — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 09:17:06 +0100

Summarises and compares a selection of the advanced search commands that are available in Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo. Updated 25th August 2012. Free of charge.

http://www.rba.co.uk/search/compare.shtml

Selected Google Commands

karen.blakeman@rba.co.uk — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 09:14:04 +0100

Updated 25th August 2012. Free of charge.

http://www.rba.co.uk/search/SelectedGoogleCommands.shtml