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Paul Sparks,
Sino-Canadian International College, Guangxi University, Online English Lesson Plans, Lesson Material and Ideas
for Reading Lessons...
Reading: Using the Internet
for Research
Lesson Objectives: To identify effective
searching methods to find information in English using the internet and to
improve general English through reading websites.
Activity: Read the article entitled “Find
your target online”. Read the article carefully missing out any words you
do not understand (Source: “The Net” magazine, September 2001.)
Search Tips: For best results, it's important
to choose your keywords wisely. Keep these tips in mind:
-
If you're looking
for information on Picasso, enter "Picasso" rather than
"painters".
-
Use words likely to
appear on a site with the information you want. "Luxury hotel
China" gets better results than "really nice places to spend
the night in China".
-
Make keywords as
specific as possible. "Antique lead soldiers" gets more
relevant results than "old metal toys".
Google (www.google.com), ignores common words and characters such as
"where" and "how", as well as certain single digits and
single letters. Google will indicate if a common word has been excluded by
displaying details on the results page below the search box.
If a common word is essential to getting the results you want, you can
include it by putting a "+" sign in front of it. (Be sure to
include a space before the "+" sign.)
Another method for doing this is conducting a phrase search, which simply
means putting quotation marks around two or more words. Common words in a
phrase search (e.g., "where are you") are included in the search.
Google searches are NOT case sensitive. All letters, regardless of how you
type them, will be understood as lower case. For example, searches for
"george washington", "George Washington", and "gEoRgE
wAsHiNgToN" will all return the same results.
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