Pirates and Piranhas Users Guide

Pirates and Piranhas is the first in a series of new tutorial games that debuts this month. In addition to the TV Search Challenge, which requires operators, Pirates and Piranhas guides players through two different search challenges that start with keyword selection and end with choosing operators that render the keywords even more effective.

Pirates and Piranhas

These challenges demonstrate how combining keywords with operators empowers queries. It is possible to do a successful live search with keywords alone, but operators help retrieve the desired results with less effort.

One way to introduce Pirates is by playing it as a group game. Using one computer, involve learners in selecting the important concepts in the question: What watery location is currently considered a paradise for pirates?

Demonstration session:

The game starts by offering six choices, all keywords taken from the statement.

Only three of the terms are necessary: pirates, paradise and currently. Point out that location is less specific than paradise, watery and world's are clutter words (though pirates can be found in places that aren't watery--so it's good to keep this in mind but not use it in the query).

To earn the maximum score (KEEP) in this game, it is important not to click on unnecessary or incorrect terms. Clicking on a term will reveal visually if it's a treasure or a pirate. If it's a pirate, a point is deducted.

The next screen is similar to a Keyword Challenge, prompting the player to decide whether the three main concepts are good to search with "as is" or whether there is probably a better keyword, a nym.

Only currently needs to be replaced by a better alternative.
Pirates is good "as is" because getting more specific may limit the findings
Paradise is good "as is" since it is more specific than location and seems to be important because of the word considered.

The following screen provides some alternatives to currently.

Only 2006 and 2007 are good options, the rest are synonyms. Numbers almost always make good keywords. In this case, currently is probably based on statistics that are at least a year old. Trends usually take time to be recognized and measured.

In practice, searching without operators is usually recommended unless there is a good reason to start with an operator. In the case of currently, it's better to keep the search flexible, searching for information from either 2006 or 2007. It's not known for which year information will be available. Searching for 2006 and 2007, which would be the result without an operator, may prevent a relevant record from appearing in the top 10 results.

Of the choices, OR is good to use with the years. OR provides the greatest flexibility and that's what is needed at this point, since an outcome can't be predicted. To search for a range of years in Google, insert two periods between numbers; for example: 2005..2007 searches for pages containing at least one of the years!
Using quotation marks with paradise for pirates will return pages that use that exact phrase, which is very effective in this case. In practice, it's risky to use quotation marks if you aren't sure you need to use an exact phrase, so it's often better to start searching without them, and based on the results, add quotes later.

The summary page indicates what you could do better, and if the score is high enough, shows an optimal query for this search.

Hands-on session:

Another way to introduce the game is to describe the types of choices that must be made:

• initial concepts

• keywords "as is"

• replacements for a keyword

• which operators may be helpful

Then let students play the game. Talking about what operators do prior to the game will help to lower frustration, but the game can be used without introduction and may be replayed to improve one's score.

If Pirates is played as a group demonstration game, follow it with Piranhas, played independently.

Piranhas follows a similar format, from concept identification to operator selection. However, this search requires different operators. piranha Here is an explanation of an optimal query for Piranhas:

• Amazon is a good keyword "as is" since it is a proper noun. Nonetheless, notice there are more meanings for Amazon, other than the river. Amazon.com is a strong rival.

• Threat turns out not to be a good word "as is." The common usage of the word, when combined with fish, is a threat to fish. Since we want a threat to humans, a better word is needed. The word most commonly used in that context is danger.

• No special operator is needed to combine Amazon, danger and fish. A page with the answer will probably use all three words, so AND is the appropriate choice.

• Linguistically, piranhas should be eliminated from the query. However, to do so will also eliminate most of the pages that describe other fish that are dangerous. Therefore it is counter-productive to include NOT piranhas (-piranhas) in the query.

• Unless Amazon.com is eliminated from the query, many of those results will clutter the top returns and make it harder to find the desired information. One solution is to use NOT com (-com) which will remove all instances of com from the results. There is actually a more elegant way to do this, but requires knowledge of a more advanced operator: -site:amazon.com, which removes all results coming from that site.

The Piranhas exercise could be used as a springboard to introduce better ways to refine queries with more advanced operators.

Neither Pirates nor Piranhas should be used as an assessment. Instead, use the Operator Assessment in this Kit, which measures knowledge of operators and performance using operators.