Search Me!

When a search term is not a keyword

Yesterday was back to school day, and I had the pleasure of spending it with fabulous librarian Anna Koval of the Big House Library. We were discussing student research projects, and what—given a limited time—students need to learn first about using search engines.

I believe that the advanced search engine functions (site:, filetype:, and the like) are amazing tools for the thoughtful searcher, but the very first skill one has to learn is the thoughtfulness itself. Since search engines essentially match the words you enter, the number one rule for good searching is simply this: really think about what you put in, and better quality stuff will come out.

This is especially difficult when you are looking for “invisible” concepts—that is, ideas that are often expressed without the words that we use to define them. Think “statistics.” We all know what statistics are—we “know them when we see them”—but they are often recorded without actually using the word itself. Other times, the kinds of statistics we want are expressed in so many different ways it is hard to know which ones to ask our search engine for. If we are simply looking for percentage of US citizens who are homeless, just that idea can be expressed as percentage, percent, or %. Search engines like Google will look for the former two terms, but cannot even see the latter. In the same way, if one of Anna’s seniors wanted to find forecasts for childhood obesity, they would also have to contend with predictions and projections.

So, this is where visualization really comes into play. Say I want to know various public policy goals regarding childhood obesity. In past years, I would have used visualization to brainstorm a list of search terms—imaging all the different ways I had seen an idea expressed: [“childhood obesity” priorities OR goals OR targets OR seeks OR returning]. Now, however, I am working smarter. I really think about the sentences, and realize there is one commonality in the writing I see about the topic when I search Google:

"..implement our six policy priorities for reversing the childhood obesity epidemic by 2015...."

"...The goal, as set out in a report from the White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity, is to reduce childhood obesity from 20% to 5% by 2030...." 

"... The report targets a real cut of 2.5% in obesity rates by 2015 and another ..."

The common form of expression in every single sentence on the topic is actually the phrase “by 20xx.” Generally speaking, the years projected tend to run from 2015 to around 2050, meaning that the concept can be easily retrieved making use of Google’s excellent number range search (..) with the search: [“childhood obesity” “by 2015..2050”], with which I ask for pages with the phrase “childhood obesity,” and the phrase “by 2015,” or “by 2020,” or “by 2025,” and so on, up to “by 2050.”

So Anna and I started discussing how we could introduce this kind of visualization to her students. Anna introduced me to AwesomeHighlighter.com, a tool for virtually highlighting online articles, and we practiced one of my favorite skills—reading a Washington Post article on childhood obesity not just for information, but also for search terms that can be used to build enhanced searches.

There are three categories of search terms we found:

1)   1) basic terminology we would need to search for more information, such as obesity epidemic;

2)   2) sources of more authoritative information, such as the White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity; and,

3)   3)associated search terms, such as by 20xx, which appeared four different times in the article with related statistics.

Teaching how to read for terminology and authorities is relatively straightforward. Reading for associated search terms is harder, but should drive home the concept that visualization can suggest creative and productive queries. So it is a tricky, but worthwhile, task.

My goal is to experiment over the next few months, and start to build a list of associated search terms for searching news sources. I’ll be sure to share. Can you think of any more examples to help me get started?

 

Predict Before You Click

When search enginges like Google give you a list of search results, is there any way to tell which results are authoritative without going to look at them all? Educating students about how to read search engine results pages can inspire them to select quality sources. To learn more, please check out my article, recently published in American Association of School Librarians' journal, Knowledge Quest (Jan/Feb, 2010), entitled: "Predict Before You Click: Search Engine Results as the First Defense of Authority."

Wikipedia as a Steppingstone Resource

I subscribe to several listservs that have been overtaken in recent days with very detailed and important conversations about Wikipedia. Although initially skeptical about Wikipedia (I do value the authority of my books, despite the fact that I have almost never worked in a library that has any on site!), my basic philosophy about research is that we need to start from where kids are, and then demonstrate that their own research strategies should naturally lead them to where we want them to be. In following this path, I have discovered for myself just what an important role Wikipedia plays in great, inquiry-rich research.

 I start almost all my research online. Although I may have created my own personal decimal system for my home library at age 10, I don't really believe that we have a way of organizing print resources that really, truly, deeply makes sense to the majority of people, and I find that the Internet gives us great tools for defining our research process. I use the Web to find out what I need to be reading about (scope and content), define search terms and vocabulary, find the sources I *should* be using, and then move on to high-quality online and offline sources.

 Of the intermediate sources I use to identify these guidelines--my "steppingstone resources"--Wikipedia is critical. I can get the background on my topic (so I don't have to waste time doing that in source after source, now I can focus and *inquire*), identify the vocabulary that "reliable" sources will be using to talk about my subject (thus making good-quality sources searchable--since I know what to *look for,* and what it would be *called* by someone speaking intelligently about it), construct a basic reading list, and even (and, I believe, importantly) read for points of inquiry--that is, identify what it is about a topic that interests me and think about what unique direction I would like my research to take. Wikipedia can usually help meet all of these needs.

 For example, I recently had a parent tell me that when her middle school -aged daughter had to do a report about Benjamin Franklin. She would not let the girl go online, but gave her ten books from the library. Otherwise, she was afraid, her daughter would use the "same three websites as every other kid." Books first is certainly a legitimate approach, and the one we grew up with, for sure. But I believe that if we taught research properly--especially Wikipedia--this "top three websites" problem would cease to be an issue. For example, I consider myself to be a relatively educated person. Yet, when I just look at the TOC of Benjamin Franklin's Wikipedia site I get very excited by things I do not remember learning. He studied oceanography? Meteorology (direction of wind vs. storm)? Chess? These are new ideas to me. I think that ten students could look at this article, and pick ten different directions in which to travel. Once I decide to learn more about why Franklin ended up in the US Chess Hall of Fame, I am quickly led to really unique and interesting resources (with clear pointers to some amazing primary sources, many of which are easily available online). I dare say this is more (1) engaging and (2) educational that reading through ten books selected by their common attribute of being on the library shelf when the mother went to get them.

Wikipedia is not a source that I beleive should be cited in a student paper, but I beleive it is an important steppingstone on the path to inquiry.

How do you feel about Wikipedia? I am always curious to hear what you, your teachers, your librarians, and other influencers in your life have to say about it!

A Searcher’s Review of Twilight: Book vs. Movie Through the Eyes of a Search Geek

Well, it is that time again—the Twilight New Moon video is now part of our lives. Pre-teen and teenage girls spend untold amounts of time mooning over Bella and Edward… providing, believe it or not, a great example of better quality, iterative searching.

Of the books’ strengths and weaknesses, what annoyed me most wasn’t  the endlessly repetitive conversations, or the thousand uses of the word alabaster, but rather Bella’s very poor online search skills.

Bella, the heroine, tricks a member of the local Quileute tribe into telling her about love interest Edward’s secret:

“’…There are stories of the cold ones…. According to legend, my own great-grandfather knew some of them. He was the one who made the treaty to keep them off our land.” He rolled his eyes.

“…’And what are they?”’ I finally asked. ‘What are the cold ones?’

“He smiled darkly.

“’Blood drinkers,’ he replied in a chilling voice. ‘Your people call them vampires.’” (124-126)

In her agitation over this revelation, Bella naturally decides to hop online to verify the vampire claim. And that is what she searches: [vampire].

“It took an infuriatingly long time, of course. When the results came up, there was a lot to sift through—everything from movies and TV shows to role playing games, underground metal, and gothic costume companies.

“Then I found a promising site—Vampires A-Z.” (133)

Bella reads though the site, “looking for anything that sounded familiar, let alone plausible,” (134) and comes up blank.

Meanwhile, my mind is fairly screaming, not about the revelation of Edward’s true identity, but rather about the fact that her friend gave her a perfectly good, highly specific and potentially powerful, search term, [cold ones], and it does not even occur to her to use it.  By sticking with a more general term, she not only opens herself up to many irrelevant hits, but fails to uncover pages that might have information matched to her specific information need. Like searching for [plant food] when you want to know what to feed your Venus fly trap. She ends up frustrated by her search process, feeling that it taught her nothing of use.

By contrast, movie-Bella has a search style that is worlds stronger.

In the film, instead of revealing Edward’s hidden identity, Bella’s friend darkly hints that Edward is somehow related to an old Quileute tribal legend, but refuses to say more. Bella then undertakes an iterative search process, in which she reads for search terms and folds them back into her search process to get more specific. In this example, Bella takes stock of what she knows, and goes online to find a more information (search: [Quileute legends]). She finds a book on Quileute myths, and homes in on the term cold one, which she then takes back online as her next search. Using this specific term, she finds precise information, which in fact allows her to build a list of attributes that she has recognized in Edward—speed, strength, and cold skin—and leverages that knowledge to add new ones—immortal, drinks blood—confirming for her that Edward is a vampire. A much more successful and satisfying search experience, if a weaker execution of the plot. This type of iterative searching is one of the key skills that I teach students, educators, and parents in my classes.

With the second movie in the Twilight Saga selling like crazy, and two more to come over the next two years, both the Twilight and the search lovers in your class can enjoy the opportunity to dig in.

My take away: No one wants to hear they have to run multiple searches to find information. So, use something kids do want to hear about to get the point across!

Do you have a time you used pop culture to teach a lesson they do not otherwise want to learn? Please share!