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History: Information Literacy

Universal search terms

Boolean operators AND, NOT or OR

AND

For example:

Copenhagen AND 1807

AND is used to find items containing both Copenhagen and 1807

NOT

For example:

(Copenhagen AND 1807) NOT Mathematica

NOT used to filter out items containing mathematica. The parentheses are used to keep track on which words that belong together.

OR

For example:

Copenhagen AND (1801 OR 1807)

or for example:

(Købehavn OR Copenhagen) AND (1801 OR 1807)

OR is used to expand the search to multiple items that you are are equally interested in.

 

Special characters

You can also use these special characters:

*

For example:

war*

 Asterisk at the end of a word is used to search for all the ends (war, warships, etc.).

?

For example:

Wom?n

? used to replace a character in a word.

" "

For example:

"Bombardment of Copenhagen"

"" Is used to search for multiple words in a context.

( )

For example:

(Copenhagen OR København) AND (1801 OR 1807)

() is used to keep track of the words that belong together.

Tips and tricks for seeking information with google

Google search for students

To search for and find relevant sources on Google can be compared to looking for a needle in a hay stack. Often one gets to spend too much time looking in the wrong places, and often ends up giving up. But you do not give up!

Effective Google Search

To search on Google for relevant sources is indeed difficult, because you often come across ads that are irrelevant to your research. But you can make search more effective using the right search terms.

How to Google?

​Signs, symbols and search terms that you can use in searches is called operators, and the operators will help you to refine and narrow your search to make it more effective. Ideally, you can use operators to trimming away large amounts of irrelevant sources, but often you must use multiple operators in a search string.

Here are the most useful operators:

 Signs and symbols

   #

You use this sign to include sources that are related to a particular hashtag in its results.

e.g. #dkpol

   -

The line you use to exclude sources from its results. The sign must stand before a word or site.

e.g. the Resistance  -wikipedia.org

   ”

The citation sign you use around phrases to include phrases with words in the same order in its results, which is relevant searching for titles.

e.g. "Futures past: on the semantics of historical time"

   ..

Two periods between the two numbers without spaces you use to include sources within the range of the numbers.

e.g. 2015..2016

   *

The star you use as a replacement for an unknown word or character.

e.g. it is an * wind that blows nobody any * 

   NB: truncation

Truncation is done automatically. This means that you don't need to add a character to find alternate suffix forms.

Search terms

   author:

Author:
and keywords without spaces you use to target your search to an author. The search term works on google scholar, but not on Google.

e.g. author:dewey, john

   define:

Define: and keywords without spaces you use to find definitions from online sources.

   intext:

Intext: you use it to include sources where a keyword that appears in the text and another that appears somewhere in the source.

e.g. "Danish West Indies" intext:colonisation

   intitle:

Intitle: followed by keywords without spaces you use to include sources that contain the keywords in its title.

e.g. intitle: tips tricks google

   inurl:

inurl: and keywords without spaces you use to include the URLs that contain the keywords in its results.

e.g. inurl:colonisation

   filetype:

Filetype: you use it to restrict results to a specific file type. It can be: doc xls ppt mp4 docx pptx xlsx

e.g: filtype:pdf

   link:

Link: followed by keywords without spaces you use to include all sources, quoting a source. Most online sources often build links between their sites and therefore these links also appears in the results. To avoid internal links - can be added followed by site: and the name of the source.

e.g. link:theguardian.com -site:theguardian.com

   OR:

OR you use it to find sources that use one or more of your keywords.

                            

e.g. enlightenment OR age of reason

   related:

Related: followed by keywords without spaces you use to find sources that are similar to a URL that you know already.

e.g. related:twitter.com

   site:

Site followed by keywords without spaces you use to find sources from a particular site, domain or country. On international sites makes the following Community often: at commercial sites includes .com, the non-profit sites included .org, .edu academic part and the state included .gov.

e.g.: site:dk

Subject Search with DDC (Dewey)

Go to rex.kb.dk. Chose "Advanced search". Enter the subject code in the text search box and select "Dewey" from the drop down menu in the first field from the left.

In DDC History is divided by individual countries and regions in the 900 groups, while ethnological literature is especially classified in the 305 (Social Groups), 306 (Culture & institutions) and 307 (Communities) categories. Folklore are classified under 398. If you want to find all titles within a main group (including all titles in any subgroups), the topic code truncates with * (asterisk) eg: 306 *.

Overview of the codes see page 7 and forward in Dewey Summaries (pdf)

Handling references

Zotero

Zotero has become the most popular program on Sdr. Campus to handle references, and it is not without reason. Zotero is a free, simple and well developed program by which the vast majority are happy.

Zotero can be downloaded from here and regularly the Copenhagen University Library runs introduction courses that you can sign up to through the calendar.

This Prezi provides a brief introduction video to the program.