Google Your Way to an A

You feel lost in your lecture hall class. Or you find yourself reading a page of your textbook and wondering what you just read. Asking professors and classmates for help is a good option – but what if you need help at midnight or your friends marginally grasp the material themselves?


First of all, citing online Web pages for papers is not the way to an A. If you’re Googling for paper citations, you should get the sources you find on the Internet from the library and cite them directly. Also note that the library offers you access to several electronic journals that allow you to get paper-worthy citations without the trek to McKeldin.


Googling is effective for understanding a complex topic that you need additional people to explain in their own ways. Internet sources often chat about subjects more casually than textbooks and lecture materials do, they break down the material, and they often give more context to it.


“I once had a professor that I did not understand very well,” stated a junior communication major. “The book wasn’t much help either, so I Googled the topic of the day and found class notes from the same course at other colleges.” This student also uses Google to understand key terms on exam review sheets.


To get the most out of your Google search, start by clicking on the Advanced Search link that is to the right of the search window. Only complete the information at the top of the page, which allows you to include multiple words in your search and avoid others. For best results, add “syllabus, Amazon” to the “without the words” list.


Choose search terms that will give you what you want. Authors’ last names and theory names work well. Use several key words.


If you want sources that will provide more context to what you’re studying, you can search for academic papers. Look for a key reference in your textbook. It should be the one that is listed immediately after an important concept. From the reference list at the end of your reading material, identify the author’s last name, date of publication, and the place where the work was published. Type these words into your search string. Academic papers can be long, so you could click on “Cached” (a link near the end of each search result) to jump to the most relevant section. The cache function returns a version of the document with the keywords highlighted.


In addition to making sense out of complicated subjects, you can impress your instructor by slipping the additional information you learned from Googling into a class discussion.


Googling class content can bring class material to life. With Google being co-founded by a UM alumnus, it’s practically the school-spirit thing to do.

Webmail Tips

Over the winter break, the system running Mail@umd e-mail was changed to the Mirapoint system. The only change that most students noticed was the new Webmail interface. The system change has been a success so far and students who have WAM and Glue accounts may be able to switch to the new system in the fall. OIT and the TechKnow newsletter will keep you posted, but in the meantime, here are some tips for using the new Webmail interface.

 

Deleting Mail
There are two ways to deal with deleting unwanted messages from the Webmail interface:

 

We recommend that you click on Preferences in the lefthand menu, and change the “Delete to Trash” preference from No to Yes. This will create a delete button in your inbox and will let you send messages you want to delete to a Trash folder that will automatically be emptied every 30 days or that you can empty more frequently.

 

Alternatively, you can mark messages you want to delete by selecting them and hitting the Mark button at the top with Deleted selected. This will put a red mark next to the messages. Then you can get rid of the marked messages by clicking on Compact in the lefthand menu.

 

Viewing your Folders
To see your folders, click on Folders on the lefthand menu. This will list your folders, and you can choose one to open to see the messages stored inside. Any folders you had under your inbox in the old system will be found in the “inbox-subfolders” folder in the new system.

 

Filing Messages in your Folders
To move a message from your inbox to a folder, select the messages you want to move by putting check marks in the boxes next to the messages. Select the destination folder from the right drop down menu along the top of the screen. Then click either the Move or Copy button depending on whether you want to move the messages or copy them to the folder you selected.

 

Verifying Junk Mail
Junk mail software places suspected junk e-mail into a folder called Junk Mail. You should periodically review this folder to ensure that the system has not placed legitimate mail in the Junk Mail folder. You can move non-junk messages to your inbox, and empty the Junk Mail folder. The system will automatically empty messages older than 30 days from the Junk Mail folder.

 

You can use the “This is Spam” and “This is Not Spam” links at the end of the “From” line at the top of messages you have opened to send unwanted mail in your inbox to the Junk Mail folder, and legitimate mail in the Junk Mail folder to your inbox.

 

Keeping your Inbox Small
Periodically cleaning out your inbox, filing messages to your folders, and throwing old ones away (also check your Sent folder for old messages you won’t need) is a great way to keep your inbox loading quickly and the e-mail system running smoothly.

You can get more information about these and other Webmail topics in the Getting Started document at www.oit.umd.edu/email/gettingstarted.

 
Office of Information Technology TechKnow is the Information Technology Newsletter for University of Maryland students, published by the Office of Information Technology. Letters to the editor and story suggestions are welcome. Please send correspondence to TechKnow@umd.edu.
© 2005 University of Maryland.