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Assignment | Rogerian Argument (Reeves): Search the Web

ENGL 1302 | Prof. Brian Reeves (Spring 2024)

Related Guides

Domain Limits

Control your Google search by specifying a specific domain (like .gov or .edu) or a website (like cia.gov or lonestar.edu) to search.

.com
The most widely-used domain; neither good nor bad.
.edu
Mostly limited to universities (with some exceptions grandfathered in, like Academia.edu). Watch out for student projects posted to these.
.gov
Limited to US government pages (federal and state). Great for statistics. Can be sensitive to different administrations' priorities and agendas.
.org
Limited to organizations... but it isn't hard to form an organization.

Try it out:

Google Web Search

Besides keywords, there are an estimated 200 factors that affect Google's page rankings, including:

  • sites paying to promote their pages,
  • what computer and browser you're using,
  • when the site was last updated,
  • how the site is structured,
  • what other people have clicked on or linked to,
  • and even what kind of pages you've searched for in the past.

Notice that "accuracy" or "reliability" don't make the list.

Date Limit

Control how recent your information is by adjusting the time range.

Note:

  • If I post a book from 1910 today, it will have a current publish date from Google's perspective. It's still old.

Google Search with the "Tools" menu (to far right) expanded and "any time" expanded to show date limit options.

"Punctuation"

Search for specific, exact phrases by placing words inside double-quote marks.

"tobacco product use among middle school students"

View results.

Note:

  • The very first result of this example does NOT display this phrase. It's one of the special results (snippets) Google promotes, not one of the more "natural" results.