I am looking for five uncommon Google research techniques. These
techniques should not be immediately obvious from the Google FAQ, and
should involve a technique that is a) repeatable for a variety of
research topics and b) phrased as a research technique that happens to
use Google as a tool.

My hope is that I will learn something about using Google that I do
not know. Since you do not know what I know (and what I don't know)
this is a vague criteria, but please bear in mind that I am pretty
knowledgable about Google, technology and researching.

Thanks in advance for your attention.

Here are some research techniques I often use that are helpful:

1) Phrase your search using wording that would be contained in the
answer.  In other words don't phrase your search (quotation charles
dickens) but rather (in quotes) ("dickens said" or "dickens once
said") or use any other phrase that you might hear if someone were
answering this question.

2) Think of who the authority on a subject might be and go to their
web page and often you can search their site.  For example the IMDB
(Internet Movie Database) website for film and television information.
 This can often be more precise than using a search engine and
devising a search strategy.

3) If a specific search is not yielding any results be as general as
you can without producing too many results.  I don't know how many
times I remove a first name from a search or use a more general term
and I find my answer.

I'm not sure if this is what you need.  If you found this helpful I
can provide more but I'm sure an official researcher will provide you
with much more.

Bowler-ga

Bowler, I think your ideas are great. I can't honestly say they are
new to me, but I would love to see your other ones.

Here's one of mine:

If you want to find out the ?not party line? about a company or
institution, a search that includes the company name in the page title
and excludes it from the URL will probably find the dirt on the
company, that is, if there is any to be dished.

The uses the intitle: operator and excludes using the inurl: operator.

For example, the search: 

intitle:halliburton -inurl:halliburton 

returns pages that people have written critical of Halliburton Corp.

Thanks for your comment.

I will sometimes use my search words in other languages, i.e. spanish,
german or italian, then if I can't understand it, I will use Google's
"translate this page" link (appears next to the title on the link
results page) to run it through a text conversion. For example, I was
looking for information on the Library of Alexandria, so I typed in
biblioteca alexandria and "biblioteca alexandria" (with and without
quotes.) and got information that I hadn't found on English sites
(although they needed a little interpretation.) Then you can also use
http://world.altavista.com/ babelfish translator if needed, by
highlighting text and running it through the translator.

Another thing I do specifically stays away from phrases. I will put
3-4 associated words that I would expect to find in the result, i.e.
for portfolio management I might submit something like:  portfolio 
gates   risk   investment rather than "portfolio management" or
"product portfolio".  I use quotes sparingly--only when I want to
include a common word or when I want to narrow results by putting two
words together.

Lastly, I will sometimes have 3 or 4 google windows open at the same
time, and run results from one into a narrower search in the other,
playing off newly-associated words I may find in the text.  I've
really nailed down good results using this method. I have a big
screen, so it's easy to have a bunch of them open at once.

Of course, for images, I use the Google Image search, which is very
cool, but beware the results if you are using it with kids in the
room. Some adult stuff comes up even with the content filter on, i.e.
today I typed in the work Phoenix and got a photo of a portion of the
male anatomy as the first result.  You can, however, use the image
search as a way to call out pages that have specific content on it,
but that may not have a lot of text or sufficient meta tags to meet
the criteria the google engine would require to place the results high
on the list. I click on the picture, and there's a webpage that
usually would result farther down in a plain text search.

I hope some of these things help.

Margi

margi - great suggestions...thanks

A cheat sheet for you:
://www.google.com/help/cheatsheet.html

Best regards,

Omnivorous-GA

I'm sure you are familiar with Google Guide:
http://www.googleguide.com/

This website also has some interesting tips:
http://searchlores.org/tips.htm

Also I make extensive use of Google Groups and the cached Google
pages.  Historical glimpses of web pages can be seen at
www.archive.org.

There is also a book:
http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/index.php/id;1723912406;fp;2;fpid;2054390450

But I must say I have learned more about searching and Google by
simply reading the answers posted here.  They offer a wealth of
information about the research process.  Researchers Pinkfreud,
Juggler, Scriptor, Tutuzdad among many others are of particular note.

Bowler-ga

The * operand is a place holder for one unknown word, and these can be
used next to each other: "red * * * blue" would return

"Red white and dark blue"

but not

"Red white and blue"

omnivirous - thanks for the cheatsheet link, I hadn't seen it. 
bowler - thanks for the additional good links. I agree that "How to
Find Everything with Google" is a good book.

FYI I am writing "Building Research Tools with Google for Dummies."

Thanks again.