Technical Writing for Engineers [The Ultimate Guide Course]

Technical Writing for Engineers [The Ultimate Guide Course] Engineers often believe technical writing to be highly-detailed documentation for fellow engineers. In fact, technical writing is a style that takes complex information and clearly explains it to a specific audience. Engineers are a great wealth of technical knowledge, however, they can struggle with how to prepare technical documents. Yet, by mastering this form of communication, engineers can enjoy important benefits. This article will outline how the challenges can become benefits and identify strategies for engineers to achieve great technical writing. We also offer a course that teaches technical writing to engineers. You can learn more about this course by clicking the button below. hbspt.cta._relativeUrls=true;hbspt.cta.load(41482, '83300502-8324-43ca-96f7-5319276ffbe7', {}); Challenges versus Benefits An engineer is a writer. Or at least, they should be a writer. Communicating technical information can be just as important as developing it. Adding technical writing to your toolkit will add a surprising amount of value to your career. Writing is an important part of the engineering process. Whether you’re a beginner or looking to refine your writing, this guide takes you through engineers’ common writing challenges, the benefits to overcoming them and tangible solutions to help you do just that. Challenge #1: Communicating Technical Knowledge If you’ve ever wondered why your boss or technician hasn’t understood the importance of a particular concept, the problem is likely communication. When too many technical details are presented in a report or other document, the crucial ones can get buried. Engineers often write technical documents as if their audience were fellow engineers. However, the audience is always changing. The reader of one document may be an expert while the reader of your next document may be a business-minded executive or a consumer. Writing for a non-engineering audience is a significant, important challenge. Benefit #1: Increased clarity and communication Good writing by an engineer will increase communication effectiveness. Directing your writing to the intended audience will allow the reader to understand the content on the first read, rather than needing to ask for additional details or explanation. By understanding the audience’s goal in reading the document, you as the writer can highlight the important data. Only the most crucial supplementary or background information should be included. The information that is needed for a decision, instruction or education must take center stage. Good technical writing will save time, avoid misunderstanding and increase workplace efficiency by promoting good communication between engineers and other staff. Solution: Use Technical Writing Style There is a major misconception that a complex and scholarly text is good technical writing. However, the opposite is true. Elaborate text often confuses the reader and conceals the purpose. Keeping the information accessible is most important. Technical writing uses the simplest and most direct language to convey the information. The tone is neutral and professional. To achieve this tone, use the active voice in your writing. Choose your words carefully so you use the fewest words possible while being precise. Avoid jargon and use clearly-explained terms instead. These strategies will create a text that effectively communicates technical details. Solution: Enhance with Graphics Good graphics support good writing. Include diagrams or schematics where they add value and increase reader comprehension. They should be directly referenced within the text and clearly explained in a caption. Challenge #2: â€Å"But no one ever reads it...† Some engineers get frustrated by the fact that their reports gather dust. Documenting can seem like a customary process with no real value. Why write a text that will never be read? The problem is not with the reader, but with the text itself. Technical documents that bury crucial information or are difficult to understand can delay reading, decision-making or worse, be altogether overlooked. A good technical document is written for a specific purpose and defined audience. Therefore, it is written to be read. Benefit #2: Valuable Career Skill Imagine how many crucial details get buried in elaborate yet inaccessible engineering reports. These reports make the reader hunt for the information they need. Engineers who can convey that essential information improve communication inside companies. Better communication ultimately increases efficiency and productivity. For this reason, employers view engineers with good communication and technical writing skills as highly valuable. Technical prowess is not enough. Technical writing can differentiate your skillset, leading to better employment prospects and higher job security. Solution: Know Your Audience Ignoring the audience is one of the biggest writing mistakes for engineers. The reader will be different for each document. To write well, you must know their knowledge of the field, relationship to the department or company, and purpose for reading. In the planning process, ask yourself, ‘Who is my reader?’. Then, write out this information so that you are aware of it and have a constant visual reminder. Keeping the audience top of mind will change the way you write your document. While you’re writing, ask yourself ‘Would my reader understand this text?’. If the answer is no, re-write it. If the answer is yes, you are producing good technical writing. Solution: Plan Effectively A technical document without a plan is like a ship without a captain. It is difficult to navigate and takes, long a long time to reach its goal (if ever!). As an engineer, you will have a deep understanding of the topic. For most reports, the reader needs to know only a fraction of your expertise. The planning process is crucial for separating the information that needs to be included from the rest. Be wary of details. The reader generally needs to know the implication of high-level specifications, not the specifications themselves. Once you’ve highlighted the necessary information, it can be organized into a coherent overview. Planning can take many forms. We recommend using a mind-map to capture and visualize the document. Other writers may prefer a pen-and-paper sketch or a spreadsheet outline. The format does not matter so long as it allows an effective and efficient plan for your document. Challenge #3: Making Time for Writing Writing often takes a back-seat to ‘real’ work. Sometimes, there can be not enough hours in the day to complete technical work, let alone to write it down. Documenting can feel secondary, and therefore gets little time allocated to it. It can be helpful to set aside time for writing where there are no distractions. Don’t wait until the end of the day to write your documents. Additionally having a quiet space can ensure you are focused without distractions. Benefit #3: Records and Completes Work Great work does not share itself. The most innovative concepts can be lost if they exist only in the laboratory. Technical writing records engineering work and allows it to reach beyond the engineering department. In addition, documentation provides a mark of completion. Some projects have a clear end point, while others can be vague. Documenting, including outstanding work for future, finalizes a project. Solution: Prioritize Writing Writing should not be an afterthought. For each major activity, documentation should be integrated into project management and time planning. By considering writing as part of the engineering process, creating the text will feel less onerous and more natural. Do not leave the writing to the last minute, as rushed writing is generally bad writing. Carve out time to plan, write and review the document. Solution: Engage in the Review Cycle As you get ready to review, take advantage of the available software tools. Check your text through both Microsoft Word’s Spelling and Grammar check with its Readability tool and the online Grammarly tool. Then, review the document again with the audience in mind. The most effective trick is to read the text aloud. Reading will highlight awkward phrases, unnecessary words, and repetition. The review process takes many forms. Most engineering companies have an internal review process using some variation of first draft-revised draft-final version. The revisions are completed by colleagues, supervisors or fellow experts. Understand the company’s review process and integrate into your writing timeline. The review provides a fresh perspective. Feedback and edits improve the document and offer valuable lessons for future writing. Take advantage of this learning opportunity. The review process can also be informal. If the executive you’re preparing the document for and your best friend have a similar level of knowledge of the topic, ask your friend to review your text. Friends and family can be a great resource to review your text for non-expert readability and accessibility. You can also ask your colleagues to do an initial review before sending it to the formal review. Additionally many engineering firms offer technical writing courses for their employees. These courses often come with document feedback and review. This allows you to receive objective feedback on the structure, style, and tone of your writing. Conclusion and Further Reading Good technical writing shines a light on important engineering work. Improving technical writing is not an overnight process, but one that provides big value to your work, your company and your career. To learn more, check out the following links: IEEE Professional Communication Society - Communication Resources for Engineers Engineer’s Guide to Technical Writing by K. Budinski'

Using Replacement Behavior to Lessen Problem Behaviors

Using Replacement Behavior to Lessen Problem Behaviors A replacement behavior is a behavior you want to replace an unwanted target behavior. Focusing on the problem behavior may just reinforce the behavior, especially if the consequence (reinforcer) is attention. It also helps you teach the behavior that you want to see in the target behaviors place. Target behaviors might be aggression, destructive behavior, self-injury, or tantrums. Functions It is important to identify the function of the behavior, in other words, Why does Johnny smack himself in the head? If Johnny is smacking himself in the head in order to deal with tooth pain, obviously the replacement behavior is to help Johnny learn how to tell you his mouth hurts, so you can deal with the tooth pain. If Johnny hits the teacher when its time to leave a preferred activity,  the replacement behavior will be to transition within a certain time to the next activity. Reinforcing approximations of those new behaviors is replacing the target or undesirable behavior to help Johnny be more successful in an academic setting.   Effectiveness An effective replacement behavior will also have a similar  consequence that provides the same function. If you determine that the consequence is attention, you need to find an appropriate way to give the attention the child needs, while at the same time reinforcing a behavior that is acceptable. It is especially helpful if the replacement behavior is incompatible with the target behavior. In other words, if a child engages in the replacement behavior, he or she is unable to engage in the problem behavior at the same time. If the target behavior is the student leaving his seat during instruction, the replacement behavior might be keeping his knees under his desk. Besides praise (attention) the teacher might also put tally marks on a desktop â€Å"ticket† which the student can exchange for a preferred activity. Extinction, ignoring a behavior rather than reinforcing it, has proven to be the most effective way to get rid of problem behavior, but it may be unsafe or incompatible with supporting student success. At the same time punishment often reinforces the problem behavior by focusing on the problem behavior. When choosing and reinforcing a replacement behavior, you draw attention to the behavior you want, rather than the behavior you dont want.   Examples Target Behavior: Albert does not like to wear a dirty shirt. He will rip his shirt if he doesnt get a clean shirt after lunch or a messy art project.Replacement Behavior: Albert will ask for a clean shirt, or he will ask for a paint shirt to put over his shirt.Target Behavior: Maggie will hit herself in the head when she wants the teachers attention since she suffers from aphasia and cannot use her voice to get the teacher or aides attention.Replacement Behavior: Maggie has a red flag that she can fix on the tray of her wheelchair if she needs the teachers attention. The teacher and classroom aides give Maggie lots of positive reinforcement for asking for their attention with her flag.

Z-ch12 Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Z-ch12 - Case Study Example The main advantage is that it encourages relationship building that greatly facilitates in overcoming workplace conflicts and work cohesively. The major disadvantage is that lot of time is wasted on non core activities that delays the project outcome. It also increases the overall cost of the project which may or may not generate ideas with great market potential. In Clay Street, the most relevant aspect is the need to develop mental models for assigned tasks through activities that highlight the importance of cohesive team processes for optimal productivity. The length of time in Clay Street becomes irrelevant to wider goals and objectives of the team which is to evolve highly creative solution to the given problems. The various activities and processes help to develop a consistent environment of integrated work which relies on creative inputs from team members coming from diverse background. Moreover, it also helps inculcate mutual respect and confidence on the cultural competencies of members that are judiciously exploited by facilitators and team leaders to enhance team processes and its outcome. The constant interaction and critical thinking over the pros and con of the problem and tentative solutions also promote lateral thinking. This is important because often new perspectives and solution evolve not as well defined processes but as i nstances of ‘eureka moments’ could emerge as breakthrough ideas with immense potential. Hence, time is not as important as the fact that team members constantly brainstorm the problems and look for out of the box solutions. The core idea of Clay Street is to give freedom to team members to evolve new ideas through various processes and states that is evaluated from diverse perspectives. Moreover, they are encumbered with the failure because they are motivated to look at failures as first step to success. This is hugely critical issue that promotes creativity and equips team

Study guide for an exam Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Study guide for an exam - Essay Example The current global footprint is exceeding the potential of the planet to sustain itself. However, with time, there will be a number of issues, which might help to bring the global footprint down and make the existence of humans on the planet sustainable. According to Wackernagel and William (32), sustainable developemt is the kind of developent, which meets the needs of today’s popualtion without compromising the needs of future generations. The first is the fact that technology is increasing the ability for the planet to sustain itself. Technology will help in producing manufacturing systems, which, in turn, produce less waste for the same level of production. At the same time, technology can be used to develop ways for the planet to help refresh its resources faster as artificial genetic modification of plants will make it easier for plants to grow faster. The second important fact is that people will get more aware about the issue of sustainability, and this may help in mak ing sure that people and societies can start living in a more sustainable way. This will, however, depend on how aggressively the campaign for sustainability is going to be accomplished. Section II Q 3: Tragedy of the Commons Tragedy of the Commons refers to the overuse and sometimes abuse of a common resource by different individuals who act independently in their exploitation of a natural resource. A good example of a common, which is being depleted by different parties, is the oceans. Different countries are depleting the oceans in a number of ways, without knowing that they are doing it. Nations such as China, the USA, European Union countries and other big nations are depleting the oceans at quite an intense pace. The oceans and seas are all interconnected and when depletion happens in one area, the effect is being felt in many other areas. For instance, overfishing is becoming a major problem as fish reserves are being depleted around the world. There is a reason why depleting fish reserves in one area of the planet affects any other area. First of all, most fish and marine animals, such as whales, sharks etc., always travel for long distances, and this means that when these fish and mammals are depleted in one area, the rest of the fauna will still be affected. In this regard, it becomes clear that seas and oceans are one of the commons, which are being affected by different nations of the world, thus, depleting the resources. Another way in which the seas are depleted is by the rising the number of cruise ships, which are increasingly overburdening the seas with waste that is hard for the seas to absorb or assimilate. The main issue with this is the fact that these cruise ships are causing massive deaths in the seas because they produce a lot of waste as they keep going. The USA, Canada and China are leading this type of pollution with their increasing number of cruise ships that take to the open sea for long periods of time, thus, spilling a lot of wa ste into the water. The waste produced by these nations has led to disasters in the marine life with many marine animals being reported as dying or having serious health issues caused by these wastes produced. Q4: Triple bottom-line Triple bottom-line is a concept of accounting, which argues that firms should look at various issues when

Student Presentation on Rotavirus Essay -- Essays Papers

Student Presentation on Rotavirus Encounter Rotavirus is a wheel-shaped double stranded RNA virus. It is the most common cause of gastroenteritis in children between the ages of 6 months and 2 years. It is believed that by the age of 4 most children in the United States have experience this infection and have developed immunity to severe disease caused by rotavirus. Individuals that are known to be at increased risk with complication of dehydration due to this viral disease include malnourished children as well as malnourished adults especially in the developing countries and the elderly that have a weakened immune system as they age. According to the Lancet, rotavirus is still believed to be the most recognized cause of diarrhea in children everywhere, however the infection is much more deadly in the developing world. "In the USA, for example, rotavirus infections are responsible for 50,000 admissions a year but only 20 deaths. In the developing world, on the other hand, rotavirus is responsible for 20% of deaths from diarrhe a in children. Worldwide it is estimated that virus kills about 500,000 children under the age of 5-years-old each year"(McCarthy 2003). As far as the U.S. is concerned, the rotavirus disease spread seems to have a seasonal distribution. (Seasonal Pattern). It has been accounted in many studiesthat rotavirus diarrhea shows a significant winter seasonality. This very unique wave of spread seems to move successively from west to east in the U.S., starting from Mexico and Southwestern states in the months of October and November and reaching the East coast in March and April. It has been suggested that weather conditions such as low temperature and humidity along with facilitated viral survival on fomi... ...d Health Policy)." The Lancet. 2003: 361; 582. Meissner, Cody. "Rotavirus and Other Viral Agents of Gastroenteritis." Mechanisms of Microbial Disease. 1999: 3; 345(9). "Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal: Rotavirus infections." Archives of Disease in Childhood, 2002: 87; 564(1). Internet "Rotavirus." Center of Disease Control and Prevention. 2003. http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/revb/gastro/rotavirus.htm "Rotavirus." Center of Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. Jan, 2003. http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~mow/chap33.html "EMT of Rotavirus." Kisielius, Jonas Jose et al. ASM MicrobeLibrary. http://www.microbelibrary.org/FactSheet.asp?SubmissionID=590&LS "Image of Double Capsid." 1995. http://web.uct.ac.za/depts/mmi/stannard/rotaboth.gif "EMTs of Negatively Stained Rotavirus as Seen in a Stool Sample. http://www.wadsworth.org/databank/rotavirs.htm

Changes in the Life of Jews in Nazi Germany Essay

The Nazis anathematize the Jews. From a long time ago the Jews were not liked by the people of Europe and in the reign of the Nazis this became much worse. The Nazis officials were given strict orders to exterminate as many Jews as possible. The Nazis wanted to remove the whole of Jewish community. They wanted to eradicate every single Jew in the whole world. The Jews had to face a really hard time during the period of 1933 to 1945. The Nazis believed that Aryan race was the superior race and Jews were the inferior race. And thus Anti-Semitism started on a large scale. After coming to power on 30 January 1933, the Nazi leadership decided to stage an economic boycott on April 1933 against the Jews of Germany targeting Jewish businesses and professionals. And over the next year the Anti-Jewish propaganda increased on a very large scale day by day. On May 1935 the Jews were forbidden from joining the German Armed Forces. Later on the same year in September the Nuremburg Laws was passed which made the life of the Jews miserable. The Nuremberg Laws were anti-Semitic laws that took away civil rights citizenship from German Jews. They also forbade sex and marriage between Jews and non-Jews. In the years 1935 and 1936 the persecution of Jews increased on a large scale. But during the Berlin Olympics in 1936 Anti-Semitism posters and banners were taken down because Hitler did not want the whole world to know what was going on in Germany at that point of time. In the year 1937 Hitler mentioned his hate towards the Jews in front of the public. And then more Jewish businesses were confiscated and more Jewish professionals were sacked. The year 1938 was the year when the segregation towards the Jews increased on a very high scale. In April every Jew had to register his/her property which made it very easy to be confiscated by the Nazis. In the month of June and July Jewish doctors and lawyers were forbidden to treat the Aryans or any German. In October every Jewish person had to stamp a â€Å"J† on their passports to mark them as Jews. But the worst day for the Jews since the time Nazis came into power was the â€Å"Kristallnacht† or as it is otherwise known â€Å"The Night of the Broken Glass† when the SS soldiers and some civilians attacked Jewish Synagogues, homes and shops. The attack left the streets covered with broken glass because of which it is called the â€Å"Night of the Broken Glass. It is an estimate that 91 Jews were killed and later 30,000 Jews were attested and were sent to concentration camps. And since then till the end of the Nazi era Jews faced numerous amounts of problems. On the 12th of November 1938 the Nazis â€Å"fined† the Jews one billion Reich marks for the damage of the Kristallnacht which was simply not fair. Just after 3 days of that the Jewish pupils were only allowed to go to Jewish schools. In the month of December the same year all the remaining Jewish businesses were confiscated. Then next year in January all the Jews had to add new first names- Sarah for women and Israel for men. The Reich office for Jewish Emigration was established to promote emigration by â€Å"every possible means†. On 12th March 1939 the first mass arrests of Jews took place and nearly 30,000 Jewish men and boys were sent to concentration camps. With the onset of war the mistreatment of the Jews increased. The same year these rules were issued against the Jews, they were no longer allowed to go outdoors after 8pm in summers and 9pm in winters, forced labour decree issued for Polish Jews from the age of 14 to 60. It was followed by Yellow Star of David which had to be worn by every Polish Jew over the age of 10 and numerous of other laws which made the life of Jews worse. In January, 1940 there was a quote posted in Der Sturmer which cleared that what was going to happen to Jews â€Å"The time is near when a machine will go into motion which is going to prepare a grave for the world’s criminal – Judah – from which there will be no resurrection. Day after day the condition of the Jews became worse and by January 1942 mass killing of Jews at the Auschwitz concentration camps started and Jews from all around in Europe were sent to concentration camps. On the 2nd of July even The New York Times reported â€Å"over 1,000,000 Jews have already been killed by Nazis†. By the end of 1942 there was a huge reduction in food rations for Jews in Nazi Germany. On May 19, 1943 – Nazis declare Berlin to be Judenfrei (cleansed of Jews). Day after day new concentration camps were set up all over Nazi Germany and Jews were deported there. But as the time passed the Russians started invading several parts of Nazi Germany and the death rate slowed down a bit. Finally on the 27th of Jan. 1945 Russian troops reached Auschwitz where an estimate of 1,500,000 Jews was killed. Within some days the Nazi Empire collapsed and the concentration camps were closed down. By the end it’s an estimate that about 5. 9 million Jews were killed. In the end I would just like to say that the things through which the Jews went though was very unfair and sad. It was one of the worst cases of segregation and I hope that no other ethnic group will go through this in the future. -Gautam Rath

25 Google Power Search Tips for Genealogists

Google is the search engine of choice for most genealogists due to its ability to return relevant search results for genealogy and surname queries and its huge index. Google is much more than just a tool for finding Web sites, however, and most people surfing for information on their ancestors barely scratch the surface of its full potential. If you know what you are doing, you can use Google to search within Web sites, locate photos of your ancestors, bring back dead sites, and track down missing relatives. Learn how to Google as youve never Googled before. Begin With the Basics 1. All Terms Count: Google automatically assumes an implied AND between each of your search terms. In other words, a basic search will only return pages that include all of your search terms. 2. Use Lower Case: Google is case insensitive, with the exception of the search operators AND and OR. All other search terms will return the same results, regardless of the combination of upper and lower case letters used in your search query. Google also ignores most common punctuation such as commas and periods. Thus a search for Archibald Powell Bristol, England will return the same results as archibald powell bristol england. 3. Search Order Matters: Google will return results that contain all of your search terms, but will give higher priority to the earlier terms in your query. Thus, a search for power wisconsin cemetery will return pages in a different ranked order than wisconsin power cemetery. Put your most important term first, and group your search terms in a way that makes sense. Search With a Focus 4. Search for a Phrase: Use quotation marks around any two word or greater phrase to find results where the words appear together exactly as you have entered them. This is especially useful when searching for proper names (i.e. a search for thomas jefferson will bring up pages with thomas smith and bill jefferson, while searching for thomas jefferson will only bring up pages with the name thomas jefferson included as a phrase. 5. Exclude Unwanted Results: Use a minus sign (-) before words that you want to be excluded from the search. This is especially useful when searching for a surname with a common usage such as rice or one which is shared with a famous celebrity such as Harrison Ford. Search for ford -harrison to exclude results with the word harrison. It also works well for cities that exist in more than one area such as shealy lexington south carolina OR sc -massachusetts -kentucky -virginia. You have to be careful when eliminating terms (especially place names), however, because this will exclude pages that have results including both your preferred location and the ones you eliminated. 6. Use OR to Combine Searches: Use the term OR between search terms to retrieve search results that match any one of a number of words. The default operation for Google is to return results that match ALL search terms, so by linking your terms with OR (note that you have to type OR in ALL CAPS) you can achieve a bit more flexibility (e.g. smith cemetery OR gravestone will return results for smith cemetery and smith gravestone). 7. Exactly What You Want: Google employs a number of algorithms to ensure accurate search results, including automatically considering searches for words that are common synonyms to be identical, or suggesting an alternate, more common spellings. A similar algorithm, called stemming, returns not only results with your keyword, but also with terms based on the keyword stem — such as powers, power and powered. Sometimes Google can be a little too helpful, however, and will return results for a synonym or word that you may not want. In these cases, use quotation marks around your search term to ensure that it is used exactly as you typed it (e.g. power surname genealogy) 8. Force Additional Synonyms: Although Google search automatically displays results for certain synonyms, the tilde symbol (~) will force Google to show additional synonyms (and related words) for your query. For example, a search for schellenberger ~vital records leads Google to return results including vital records, birth records, marriage records, and more. Similarly, ~obituaries will also include obits, death notices, newspaper obituaries, funeral, etc. Even a search for schellenberger ~genealogy will yield different search results than schellenberger genealogy. Search terms (including synonyms) are bolded in Google search results, so you can easily see what terms were found on each page. 9. Fill in the Blanks: Including an *, or wildcard, in your search query tells Google to treat the star as a placeholder for any unknown term(s) and then find the best matches. Use the wildcard (*) operator to end a question or phrase such as ​william crisp was born in * or as a proximity search to find terms located within two words of each other such as david * norton (good for middle names and initials). Note that the * operator works only on whole words, not parts of words. You cant, for example, search for owen* in Google to return results for Owen and Owens. 10. Use Googles Advanced Search Form: If the search options above are more than you want to know, try using Googles Advanced Search Form which simplifies most of the search options previously mentioned, such as using search phrases, as well as removing words you dont want to be included in your search results. Search Suggested Alternate Spellings Google has become one smart cookie and now suggests alternate spellings for search terms that appear to be misspelled. The search engines self-learning algorithm automatically detects misspellings and suggests corrections based on the most popular spelling of the word. You can get a basic idea of how it works by typing in geneology as a search term. While Google will return search results for pages on geneology, it will also ask you Did you mean genealogy? Click on the suggested alternate spelling for a whole new list of sites to browse! This feature comes in particularly handy when searching for cities and towns for which you arent sure of the correct spelling. Type in Bremehaven and Google will ask you if you meant Bremerhaven. Or type in Napels Italy, and Google will ask you if you meant Naples Italy. Watch out, however! Sometimes Google chooses to display the search results for the alternate spelling and youll need to select the correct spelling to find what you are really lookin g for. Bring Back Sites From the Dead How many times have you found what looks to be a very promising Web site, only to get a File Not Found error when clicking on the link? Genealogical Web sites seem to come and go every day as webmasters change file names, switch ISPs, or just decide to remove the site because they can no longer afford to maintain it. This doesnt mean the information is always gone forever, however. Hit the Back button and look for a link to a cached copy at the end of the Google description and page URL. Clicking on the cached link should bring up a copy of the page as it appeared at the time that Google indexed that page, with your search terms highlighted in yellow. You can also return Googles cached copy of a page, by preceding the pages URL with cache:. If you follow the URL with a space-separated list of search words, they will be highlighted on the returned page. For example,  cache:genealogy.about.com surname  will return the cached version of this sites homepage with the term surname high lighted in yellow. Find Related Sites Found a site that you really like and want more? GoogleScout can help you find sites with similar content. Hit the Back button to return to your Google search results page and then click on the  Similar Pages  link. This will take you to a new page of search results with links to pages that contain similar content. The more specialized pages (such as a page for a specific surname) may not turn up many relevant results, but if you are researching a particular topic (i.e. adoption or immigration), GoogleScout can help you find a large number of resources very quickly, without having to worry about selecting the right keywords. You can also access this feature directly by using the related command with the URL of the site that you like (related:genealogy.about.com). Follow the Trail Once youve found a valuable site, chances are that some of the sites which link to it may also be beneficial to you. Use the  link  command along with a URL to find pages that contain links pointing to that URL. Enter  link:familysearch.org  and youll find about 3,340 pages which link to the homepage of familysearch.org. You can also use this technique to find out who, if anyone, has linked to your personal genealogy site. Search Within a Site While many major sites have search boxes, this isnt always true of smaller, personal genealogy sites. Google comes to the rescue again, however, by allowing you to restrict search results to a specific site. Just enter your search term followed by the  site  command and the main URL for the site you wish to search in the Google search box on the main Google page. For example,  military site:www.familytreemagazine.com  pulls up 1600 pages with the search term  military  on the Family Tree Magazine Web site. This trick is especially useful for quickly finding surname information on genealogy sites without indexes or search capabilities. Cover Your Bases When you really want to make sure you havent missed a good genealogy site, enter  allinurl:genealogy  to return a list of sites with  genealogy  as part of their URL (can you believe that Google found more than 10 million?). As you can tell from this example, this is a better option to use for more focused searches, such as surnames or locality searches. You can combine multiple search terms, or use other operators such as OR to help focus your search (i.e.  allinurl:genealogy france  OR  french). A similar command is also available to search for terms contained within a title (i.e.  allintitle:genealogy france  OR  french). Find People, Maps and More If youre searching for U.S. information, Google can do so much more than just search Web pages. The lookup information they provide through their search box has been expanded to include street maps, street addresses, and phone numbers. Enter a first and last name, city, and state to find a phone number. You can also do a reverse lookup by entering a phone number to find a street address. To use Google to find street maps, just enter a street address, city, and state (i.e.  8601 Adelphi Road College Park MD), in the Google search box. You can also find business listings by entering the name of a business and its location or zip code (i.e.  tgn.com utah). Pictures From the Past Googles image search feature makes it easy to locate photos on the Web. Just click on the Images tab on Googles home page and type in a keyword or two to view a results page full of image thumbnails. To find photos of specific people try putting their first and last names within quotes (i.e.  laura ingalls wilder). If youve got a bit more time or a more unusual surname, then just entering the surname should be enough. This feature is also a great way to find photos of old buildings, tombstones, and even your ancestors hometown. Because Google doesnt crawl for images as often as it does for Web pages, you may find many pages/images have moved. If the page doesnt come up when you click on the thumbnail, then you may be able to find it by copying the URL from below the feature, pasting it into the Google search box, and using the cache feature. Glancing Through Google Groups If youve got a bit of time on your hands, then check out the Google Groups search tab available from the Google homepage. Find info on your surname, or learn from the questions of others by searching through an archive of over 700 million Usenet newsgroup messages going back as far as 1981. If youve got even more time on your hands, then check out this  historical Usenet timeline  for a fascinating diversion. Narrow Your Search by File Type Typically when you search the Web for information, you expect to pull up traditional Web pages in the form of HTML files. Google offers results in a variety of different formats, however, including .PDF (Adobe Portable Document Format), .DOC (Microsoft Word), .PS (Adobe Postscript), and .XLS (Microsoft Excel). These files appear among your regular search results listings where you can either view them in their original format, or use the  View as HTML  link (good for when you dont have the application that is needed for that particular file type, or for when computer viruses are a concern). You can also use the filetype command to narrow your search to find documents in particular formats (i.e. filetype:xls genealogy forms). If youre someone who uses Google quite a bit, then you may want to consider downloading and using the Google Toolbar (requires Internet Explorer Version 5 or later and Microsoft Windows 95 or later). When the Google Toolbar is installed, it automatically appears along with the Internet Explorer toolbar and makes it easy to use Google to search from any Web site location, without returning to the Google home page to begin another search. A variety of buttons and a drop-down menu make it easy to perform all of the searches described in this article with just a click or two.