Professional Journals

Journal # 1
Google Guide
By Doug Johnson

This article does a fine job of offering suggestions to better improve one’s Google skills. Google has become a widely used source for several individuals including teachers and students. There are a few basic things to keep in mind when using Google. First, know what you are looking for; better the search by knowing a few facts about the topic that you are searching. Next, put your search in the form of a question; by using a question you are providing more search terms which will in turn narrow your search results and make them more specific. Once you enter your search and produce results, check to see if the sources are relevant to what you are looking for. This can be done by reading the sentences under the title with out actually going to the actual site. Using operators effectively may provide a more useful set of results. An example of a “quoted string operator” would be “birds-gaming”. If you prefer not to use search operators you can use Advanced Search. The article continues on to give more brief explanations concerning page ranking, the difference between sponsored and non-sponsored links, specialized search tools within Google and Google’s own search tips. Overall I found the article to be very helpful.

1.Would this article be useful for my students?

I believe that this article would be beneficial to my students and would give a better understanding of how to use Google as a search engine. The article is clear and easy to follow by providing important information in organized paragraphs that are not too wordy.

2.Did I learn anything new after reading the article?

I definitely learned something new from this article even though I have been using Google as a search engine for years. I did not know about the sponsored and non-sponsored sites. This proves that a review never hurts and something new could be discovered that you did not know before.