If you are a college student or simply like to learn, Google is sure to be an essential part of your learning process. It’s a tool you can use to find the needed information and effectively continue your education. Let’s discuss the top 6 tricks you should know to have an even better experience.
Top 6 secrets about Google that will help you study
First of all, you should learn to search for information faster. It’s much easier than you think to find the exact information you need. Googling efficiently includes 4 main tips:
- Be precise by using site:[URL] if you are searching for a specific page on the site. The same concerns searching for authors; just type author:[name]. In case you need to find a page with a specific word in the title, you need to type intitle:[the word you are looking for]. It works like a filter delivering you specific information.
- When you google for certain formats of the files, you can use filetype:[extension you need, e.g. JPG, DOC, etc.]. This is a secret to seeing only the formats you need for your presentation, college paper or any other project.
- If you want to find preside word combination, just put it in quotation marks. This will result in delivering sites that use this specific word combination.
- Using an asterisk, you can broaden your search. You can let the search engine fill in this blank. For instance, type why money is and an asterisk. The list of results will include files with all possible endings.
Another interesting secret you should know about is how to get shortcuts to quick answers. For example, you need to find a definition of the word. Just type define [term you need] and you’ll immediately see what it means. Another great example is when you need to find out the date of birth/death of a writer. Type the name and add death to get a shortcut.
If you use Google Drive, you can use the research tool to find the data you need for your papers. Go to Tools > Research in the document and look up things and terms. It’s very convenient.
Bonus secret to help you study
The 7th secret you must know is how to search Google Books or use Google Scholar. Visit books.google.com and use the search tools to get the source you need. There are lots of filters that can narrow down the list of results by language, author, publication year, type of publication, options with preview only, etc. Research material can be easily discovered via Google Scholar.
The verdict
All in all, Google has lots of tricks that can simplify your browsing. As soon as you get used to using them, you’ll notice how efficient your searches are. You’ll spend less time browsing through dozens of sites and get precisely what you need in a matter of minutes. This is especially helpful if you are writing a paper and your deadline is moving up fast.