Lesson 5: Further Study

This lesson is more of a list of reference material for further reading. It is designed for people who want to learn more about some of the technical aspects of what was discussed in the previous lessons, or who want to improve their searching skills further.

If you've arrived directly here and haven't reviewed the previous lessons, it might be an idea to do so.

Books

Google Pocket Guide, O'Reilly, 140 pages.
This is a handy little book which covers all of the basic Google commands, as well as some of the more advanced ones, and examples of how to use them.

Unlocking Google's Hidden Potential, Steven Spencer, 27 pages. (pdf)
This free e-book is a great little guide giving you not just the relevant commands, but lots of ways to use them. The final section also lists details of some of Google's other products. Worth a download and a print.

Websites

Boolean Logic, Wikipedia
This is an article that explains, in some detail, what boolean logic is and how it works. Since we use it all the time when we search (but many don't realise it), it can be interesting for some who are unfamiliar with it to inform themselves about the basic principles.

Boolean Full-Text Searches, mysql.com
This article outlines the basic operators that are used in MySQL's full-text search. This is the function which drives the built-in search function of this forum, therefore it could be considered like a mini-reference guide to additional operators that were not covered in these lessons (like ~ < >)

Full-Text Stopwords, mysql.com
Stop words are words that are automatically omitted from searches because they are considered too common. This page lists the stop words used in MySQL full-test search and therefore the same stop words which are used on this forum. The list is more comprehensive than you might imagine.

What's Next?

Sorry, there is no next. The next lesson is actually a "so, you think you know it all" lesson, designed for the super-experts who scroll right to the end. Since you were patient enough to read this far you can probably skip it. Details of how to discuss aspects of this lesson are at the end of this thread.