Building Research Tools With Google (2005)

How This Book Is Organized

In the spirit of making the organizational concept behind this book more clear to you, my dear reader, here are brief descriptions of the parts of this book.

Part I: Getting Started with Google Research

This part explains the “who, what, where, when, and why” of Google and research on the Web. You can find out how and why Google is so useful and discover what kinds of information you can get out of Google. You’ll also find out about lesser-known Google applications and functionalities that are useful to researchers.

Part II: Crafting Queries and Using the Google Research Tools

The chapters in Part II show you how to become a power Google user. Chapters 4 and 5 are concerned with using operators to construct effective queries. (You need to know this material later if you want to build applica¬tions that query Google.) The rest of Part II focuses on Google applications in addition to the plain-vanilla Web search.

Part III: Building Valuable Research Content

In this part, I help you make more effective use of the larger Web for your research forays. I explain the steps you need to take to become a more effi¬cient researcher and show you in detail some of the underlying mechanisms of Google and the Web. You also learn some the best and most effective ways to present research results.

Part IV: Building Research Tools Using the Google APIs

Part IV explains what the Google APIs are and how to use them, and shows you how to obtain a Google developer key and download the Google software development kit (SDK). You learn how to work with the GoogleSearch WSDL file, and program with the Google APIs Web service. The information in this part shows you how to build your own custom advanced search forms, how to track keyword trends over time, and much more. You need to have a background in programming to get the most out of this part.

Part V: The Part of Tens

I’ve always thought that the Part of Tens is one of the most fun parts of any For Dummies book, and, keeping with tradition, I’ve tried to make this part as much fun and useful as possible. Chapter 19 shows you Google-centric research resources on the Web. Chapter 20 shows you research tools that have been written using the Google Web APIs. You can use these tools aloneor simply admire (dare I say oogle, er, Google) them as examples of what can be done using the Google APIs when programmers apply a little imagination, creativity, and grit.

Part VI: Appendixes

The appendixes to this book provide information about what you get when you download the Google software development kit (SDK), and help with creating Google Web API applications using Java or Visual Basic.

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