Dr. Sarah's Homer's Paycheck Homework
DUE at the Beginning of Class
You will need to have completed this homework in order to be successful in class.

NAME_________________________________ Circle Class   2:00     3:30
Samples of searches from class:
+history   +"interest rates"         521,000 pages
+"history of interest rates"   -200*         649 pages
+"origins of banking"   +interest         308 pages
Origins of Banking
+"history of interest rates"   +babylonian         7 pages
Financing Civilization
+"cuneiform"   +babylonian   +interest         3160 pages
CUNEIFORM TABLET
+usury   +interest   +Babylonian   +money         1060 pages
Usury is Piracy
  • Open up a web browser and go to www.google.com. Use effective searching techniques to try and find a web page containing Homer's full paycheck info (this must include Gross Pay, Net Pay, AND FICA).
    Recall that quotes tell the search engine to find pages with that phrase in it, while +word is used to tell it to find that word in it. Be sure that you use +word1   +word2 (ie a space between +word1 and +word2) Some additional suggestions:
    1. Note that if you search with
      +Homer   +Simpson*
      then you come up with way too many web page links to click on, so you need more effective searching. The * after Simpson so that it will return pages with Simpson, Simpsons, or Simpson's in them. I.e. Simpson* in a search directs the engine to find pages with anything after Simpson.
      I suggest that you include
      -1010
      in your effective search, since this will eliminate all of the pages with the word 1010 in them (otherwise you will find this assignment sheet). The point of you searching yourself instead of having me just tell you is for you to improve your web searching skills (which will only happen with lots of practice for different searches).
    2. Once you have found promising website links, then you can click on a link to go to that page. It would take a long time if we had to read through entire web pages to find info we want. There is a better way:
      Searching within a web page Under EDIT, go to FIND..., type in one word you want to find in a web page.
      Searching within an adobe acrobat .pdf file If the file is a .pdf file, then Edit/Find won't work. But, just above the page itself, look for the BINOCULARS, and click on them. Then type in the word you want to find in the page (for example, paycheck or gross pay) and then click on FIND.
  • Write down Homer's complete paycheck information (this must include Gross Pay, Net Pay, AND FICA, but you should also write down the rest of the paycheck info too).








  • Write down the web address of the web page that contained Homer's paycheck.

  • Write down the exact searching words (+blah +"something else"...) that enabled you to find the web page by searching www.google.com

  • Write down the word that you used to find the paycheck within the web page or adobe file (#2 above).