How do I search for...

thothguard51 · Aug 28, 2012

OK, I have a very strong suspicion that something someone posted on his/her blog is lifted from someone else's work, or parts of it are.

How do I search for book, song, poem, article passages on google? (Yes I am being purposely vague as it is only a hunch, and no, it is not one of our AW members...)

I did this once before, many years ago and it worked well but damn if I can remember now and searching google books does nothing but refer me to titles, which is not what I am looking for...

Maryn · Aug 28, 2012

You put quotation marks around phrases which are likely to be unique. You try to sidestep any which could be written in more than one way, such as contractions or not.

So if you were searching for the Star Spangled Banner, you'd put in something like "for spacious skies" "purple mountains majesty" (remember, search engines ignore apostrophes) and "fruited plains."

Maryn, who learned this seeking song titles based on partial lyrics

DSA · Aug 29, 2012

I've used this topic just recently in a story. As a test, I just opened To Kill a Mockingbird and chose a random sentence on p. 79: "You like words like damn and hell now, don't you?" Sure enough, Google identified it as from To Kill a Mockingbird. Love Google.

How do I search for...

thothguard51

A Gentleman of a refined age...

Maryn

Baaa!

DSA

New kid, be gentle!