ITS Technology Tips

Wolfram Alpha is an online service that distinguishes itself from typical search engines by providing answers to factual queries, rather than answering a question with a listing of Web pages.  Wolfram Alpha functions as an answer engine by retrieving answers from its own internal knowledge base.   To see how Wolfram Alpha works, try entering a city name, date or math formula. You can also check out the Example by Topic page or watch an overview video to learn more.  To add Wolfram Alpha functionality to your Web browser, visit the Downloads page to find plug-ins and toolbars.

While it’s all too common to “Google it” to find any information imaginable, you may spend more sifting through endless results than you need to. Using Google Advanced Search not only helps you refine your search, you might come across some information that you wouldn’t normally find.

Advanced Search

You can access Google Advanced Search by clicking on the “Advanced Search” link on the Google home page. Note: If you’d like to search for images only, click on the “Images” tab on the Google home page then click on the “Advanced Image Search” link. Once you are ready to start your Advanced Search, keep in mind that you’ll only need to enter information into the fields you’d like to use. If you’d like to search for items with a particular file type, such as a PDF or Flash video file, try selecting a File Format. If you wish to narrow your results to only Government or Education sites, you can type .gov or .edu into the Domain field. For more tips on refining your search, visit Google Help: Advanced Search.

University Search

If you’d like to narrow your search to a specific school, a link for Google University Search is located at the bottom of the Advanced Search page. You can use the alphabetical index to locate your target school and then search for information within that institution only.