Boolean search strategies & discussion

Description:

This week, students were given hands-on practice in applying search strategies while using search engines. This Discussion is for students to discuss their search results in “Search Exercise #2: Boolean Search Strategies” including an analysis of the findings and overall implications of the inner workings of search engines.

Please post your response to the questions below in your initial posting. Then, reply to at least two other students’ postings. Please post and comment by the due dates and time. Feel free to “like” a student’s posting!

Discussion of Exercise #2: Boolean Search Strategies/Results

1. Briefly assess your search experience: Did you find useful information for the (5) query questions/statements that were given to you? How did you change your search strategies to improve/maximize your results? Which “tricks” and/or specific options worked (e.g., Boolean operators, keywords, ordering, phrasing with quotes, parentheses) and which didn’t? Did you use Google’s Advanced Search page with enhanced search options? If so, did this improve your results?

2. Compare the traditional search engine results with those of the AI search engine you used. Which was easier? Which would you prefer to use in this case?

3. Overall Observations: Why do you think you received the results you did based on the search queries you submitted? Specifically, what “inner workings” (such as
crawling, indexing, querying/retrieving, and/or ranking) of search engines (in this case, Google) affected your search results?
Make reference to the lecture(s), readings, and/or media in this unit to support your perspective (cite the lecture, reading, or media with the author) to support your observations.
Note: In your overall observations, it’s important to make connections to the inner workings of search engines to become an informed, skilled user of IR systems to retrieve information that will best meet your needs in the quickest way possible when you conduct research, which you’ll be doing in the Information Consultant Project AND the IT Market Sector Analysis Project!

Overall Observations (include in the same Word document)

Based on what you have learned in this unit, why do you think you received the results you did based on the search queries you submitted? Specifically, what “inner workings” (such as
crawling, indexing, querying/retrieving, and/or ranking) of search engines (in this case, Google) affected your search results?
Make reference to the lecture(s), readings, and/or media in this unit to support your perspective (cite the lecture, reading, or media with the author) to support your observations.

Note: In your overall observations, it’s important to make connections to the inner workings of search engines to become an informed, skilled user of IR systems to retrieve information that will best meet your needs in the quickest way possible when you conduct research, which you’ll be doing in the Information Consultant Project AND the IT Market Sector Analysis Project!

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