Otherwise, I'm confident there's information out there on how to search patents, but I haven't seen it.
But I think examining an actual application will be more useful for you. You can do this yourself as practice. Find a patent application that was examined. Be sure to pick an application and not a granted patent. In the US the number will be formatted like USYYYYXXXXXXXA1. You want to do an examined one so that you can compare against what the examiner did. That will be pretty easy if you pick one that was published a while back, so YYYY could be like 2015. On Google Patents for the application you picked, look for "External links" on the top right and go to "USPTO PatentCenter". Then under "Documents & Transactions" on the left, look for "Non-final rejection". If there's a rejection posted then you can see what the examiner did and compare against what you did when you're done.
Look at the independent claims of the application and find prior art that fits the claims. Don't check what the examiner did before you search, just try searching on your own. Write an office action (the report listing why it's the same). "Map" the claims by putting in parenthesis after each claim element why the prior art shows this feature. For example:
> A widget (Bob fig. 6 shows a widget) with blue lights (Bob fig. 6 shows the lights; para. 0076 says that the lights are blue).
When you're done, compare against what the examiner did.
Be aware that it probably will take you several weeks or longer to do your first one.
You could also read a book like Patent it Yourself by David Pressman to better understand the legal aspects than what you'll get from the USPTO's slides.
