Information Literacy: searching and finding for information


Thanks to the widespread of the internet, a lot of information can be found easily across the world at the click of a button. The onus now lies on us to choose what is relevant for you. There are websites, blogs, questions and answer forums, online databases, online libraries, repositories, wikis and many other platforms from which information can be found.

Though there are many resources online, it is essential to bear in mind the quality of your source of information. Can the information provided be trusted? What is the quality of your source? What keywords were use to find the information? Do you need to create from scratch? Maybe yes, maybe no. You can stand on the shoulders of the giants of the discipline of interest. Creative Commons provides and allows the use of digital content for free but it may require that you acknowledge the original creators.

Another point worth mentioning is that one is solely responsible and accountable for the information created. Do not forget that PLAGIARISM, copying the work of someone as your own without crediting the creator.

To search for information, all you need is a computer or a phone with a web browser that is connected to the internet. Browsers include Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera Mini, Internet Explorer, Safari, Edge. With your browser ready, google, bing, yahoo, among other search engines are used to find information. Information is searched for with a combination of keywords. Almost all search engines have strategies and tools that can optimize your search. There are tutorial and courses online for teaching searching on the web.

In this post, I share with you a lesson I took on a course "Power Searching With Google". Before I took the course, I thought that I was a pretty good user of Google. To know my search skills, I took an assessment test that precedes the course. The results of the assessment showed that there is more room for improvement so I proceeded with the course.

Google Search

I snipped the image above with Window's Snipping Tool. I will quickly explain a few features that have enhanced my search and I believe it will be of help to you too. In the search box, the search text can be typed or spoken. The choice is yours to make. The area highlighted with red shows the format of your search results which can be an image, a video, a map, news, more. In the All button, a mixture of all the images, video, maps, social media content, websites, and blogs. The Settings and the Tools buttons provide more advanced search options.

Here are a few tips that can enhance your search.


  • Different search results using a combination of keywords.
  • Each word makes a difference
  • Word order matters
  • Capitalization doesn’t make a difference
  • Characters
  • Punctuation that matters: $, #, and + (when used as C++, Google+)
  • Punctuation that Google ignores: ¶, £, €, ©, ®, ÷, §, %, (), @, ?, !
Visit Google Search Help for more information

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