You already know that almost anyone — and machine-generated content, text or images made by AI tools — can publish online. Today you put that to work.
How do you turn a vague question into a search that gives you results worth reading?
- Turn a vague question into precise search terms.
- Run a real search.
- Read the results page, telling ordinary results from adverts and sponsored listings.
- Start a short search log on a topic of your own.
A search box will answer almost anything you type. The quality of what comes back depends on the quality of what you ask.
Compare these two starting points on the same idea:
- Vague: stuff about phones and sleep
- More precise: teenagers smartphone use sleep quality research
On a results page you will usually see three kinds of thing:
- Sponsored or Ad: labelled Sponsored, Ad or Promoted, paid for visibility
- Ordinary (organic) results: unpaid listings the tool ranked as relevant
- Extra blocks: maps, shopping carousels, short answer boxes; useful sometimes, but not a full source you have checked
Your job is to choose terms on purpose, refine them when the page is noisy, and notice who paid to be there, not to take the first blue link as the best source.
Ad, result, or something else?
Work in pairs on a device (or direct the teacher’s search from the board if devices are limited). You are hunting useful information, not shopping.
Class starting question (deliberately vague): “Do gaming headsets damage hearing?”
- Rewrite the question as search terms. Drop filler words. Keep who, what, and the kind of information you want. Aim for something sharper, for example: teenagers gaming headset hearing damage research. Write your pair’s first version before you search.
- Run the search. Look at the full first screen before you open anything. Mark (on paper or in a shared note): how many results look sponsored or labelled as ads, how many look ordinary (organic), and whether any shopping or “quick answer” blocks are taking space at the top.
- Refine once. Change or add one or two terms based on what was missing (for example add “research”, “guidelines”, “volume”, or remove a word that pulled shopping pages). Run the new search. Note what improved and what got worse.
- If time: open one ordinary (organic) result and say in one line who seems to have published it and whether it actually answers the question for people your age.
Be ready: in Make sense, three pairs will share one refined string, one ordinary result worth keeping, and one Sponsored/Ad tell. If the school filter hides ads and nothing on your page is labelled, say instead what a sponsored slot would look like and where on the page it would sit.
No-device fallback: the teacher runs the browser on the board. Pairs still write terms, call out refinements, and vote which results look sponsored before anyone opens a link.
Now apply the same habit to a topic you actually care about. Keep a short search log as you go.
Pick a topic from this menu, or choose your own school-appropriate idea:
- How sleep affects focus for teenagers
- Safe strength training for beginners your age
- How to practise a musical instrument as a beginner
- Common birds in Ireland and how to spot them
- What drains a phone battery and how to reduce it
- Or your own topic (hobby, sport, music, gaming, school subject, local issue)
Fill the log block:
- Vague question: ___
- Search 1 terms: ___
- Search 2 terms: ___
- Starred ordinary result (title): ___
- Best string: ___ because ___ (one line; finish this if you have time)
Run both search strings, star one ordinary (organic) result that seemed most useful so far, and save the log the class way so you can reuse the topic when you compare sources next.
Three pairs share: one best refined string, one ordinary result worth keeping, and one Sponsored/Ad tell - or, where the filter hid the ads, what a sponsored slot would look like and where it would sit. Listen for what changed when terms got more precise, and what still looked paid-for.
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