Working with Google

I'm working hard at the proofreading job, and since I have absolutely nothing interesting to say because my brain is full of confusing statistics, I thought I'd pass on a few Google tips instead. Most of these are things I'm finding very useful as I work.

1. You know to use double quotes if you want to search for a phrase rather than a word, right? You didn't know? Well, say you want to look up post-listing negative drift. Try it without quotes, and with quotes. See the difference? The first one will give you about 150 hits, and the second, one hit. (And that one hit, incidentally, was exactly what I was looking for.) NOTE TO TEACHERS: This feature is very useful for tracking down plagiarism.

2. Google Scholar. For academic searches. Brilliant.

3. If you don't know the meaning of a word, go to the Google search page and type define: word into the search bar. For example, if you type define: opportunist you will get five definitions, of which the second is my favourite.

4. A search page for Mac users.

5. And one for Swedish chefs.

Back to work.