Most of us do Google searches like some truck-stop gambler yanking the arm of a slot machine —find a loose search term in your pocket, drop it in the machine, pull the handle, watch the wheels spin, and hope for three cherries and a cascade of silver dollars. More often, the result is a cherry-lemon-bell list of hits that barely fit your needs (if at all) and which are heavily laden with sponsored content—websites that pay Google to steer your searches in their direction, even if they’re not what you want. With a modest number of tricks—offered in the paragraphs below—your searches can become less one-armed bandit and more world-class poker.
I was inspired to write this after reading Card Catalog Substacker Hana Lee Goldin (MLIS)’s itemized list of tools in her 4,000-word essay:
“Google Has a Secret Reference Desk. Here’s How to Use It.”
I highly recommend that any serious researcher or frequent user of search engines read Goldin’s piece from top to bottom. Meanwhile, this Bastiat’s Window essay compresses many of her tips and some others into bullet form (replicated in the following downloadable PDF):
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