Research Skills Heads-Up: What Technology Can and Cannot Do for You

Microsoft Word cannot correct your mistakes for you because it cannot think.  It can only match.  Thus, if you write the word "ten" instead of the word "teen" it does not know what you meant to say.  If you say "There are three Tanishas in my class," Microsoft Word will underline "Tanishas" as incorrect, even though it is correct!  If you INCORRECTLY put an apostrophe before the s, the red line will disappear, because Word will think that you're using a posessive, even though you are not.  Word cannot think and ONLY YOU CAN CORRECT YOUR OWN MISTAKES.  Word can be useful in drawing your attention to potential mistakes, but should never be relied upon to detect all mistakes, nor to correct all of them.

Google is a search engine.  It cannot think, it can only match.  Thus, if you misspell a word, it does not know what you MEANT to say.  Similarly, it cannot understand a question in the traditional sense.  It merely tries to match the words that you type into the search box.  If you type in: "Why is the sky blue?" it will find matches for "why" and "is" and "the" and "sky" and "blue."  Or it may "recognize" that you are asking a question,  because you've put in a question mark, and take you to a site that answers questions, but if you want to find information on why the sky is blue, you should consider what types of words would take you to such a site, for instance:
search for:
blue sky reasons
blue sky reflection
color sky ocean
blue color atmosphere ocean
atmosphere color
etc.

In other words, think of all the words or terms that mean "sky," and use those.  Remember, some web sites will have information under "sky," and others will use the word "atmosphere."  Because a SEARCH ENGINE CANNOT THINK, it does not know that by "sky" and "atmosphere," you mean the same thing.  That is why you should try both searches.

The other thing you can do to look for good internet results is go to a web site that specializes in that kind of information.  For instance, if you are looking for "Rates of HIV transmission in teenagers in New York City," you may want to go to the National Institute of Health, which is nih.gov, and look for HIV transmission statistics for New York City teenagers there. 

When using a search engine, as in the previous example, remember to search for a variety of synonyms - words that mean the same thing.  So, for instance, you could look for:
HIV transmission New York City teenagers
HIV transmission NYC teens
HIV transmission NY teens
HIV infection New York teens
HIV infection New York City adolescents
AIDS NYC teens
AIDS teens statistics NYC
AIDS adolescents statistics New York City
etc.