RESEARCH: RESEARCH PAPERS & GENERAL RESEARCH: GOOGLE: Searching Tips

For academic research, teachers/professors will discourage or not even permit a Google search, but if you must, use the tips on this page (and on the SEARCHING page) to help you do a better and more effective Google search. 

1. Use Google to help you identify keywords & synonyms: Example: Type something like the following into the Google search bar:
   1. topics associated with __xxx__
   2. interesting topics associated with __xxx__
   3. persuasive topics associated with __xxx__
   4. keywords and synonyms for __xxx__
   5. topics associated with __xxx__
   6. terms associate with __xxx__
   7. issues associated with __xxx__  
2. If you only want academic sites, which is highly advised for academic research (and not .com - commercial sites), type the following into the search box:  vegitarianism .org .edu .gov  (see additional info in box)
3. ​Quotation marks will always help Google narrow down your topic, so type the following: "Cuban Missile Crisis" (see additional info in box)
4. Trying to find information in a certain time period? Use time frame restrictions like the following:
   1. __xxx__ before: 2020
   2. __xxx__ after: 2020
   3. __xxx__ 2020-2025 (example: texting accidents and 2020-2025
5. Use Boolean operators/modifiers such as the words AND and OR and NOT to your advantage (see additional info in box). Load up that search bar with terms to help get what you need (example: testing and teens and accidents and statistics and 2023-2025).
6. If you want to search a specific site for information, here's how you do it. Let's say you want to search the topic of euthanasia, but you know that you really like procon.org, so that's the website you'd like to search. You would put the search term along with site:name of site in the search bar, like this example:
   1. type in search bar: __xxx__ and site:name of site (example: euthanasia and site:procon.org)
7. Do you love a particular site and wish you could find more sites like that one? Do a similar site search by typing the following:  related:imdb.com  (be sure to have the domain (like .com or .org) listed with the site's name).                                                                               

• GOOGLE SCHOLAR:  Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites. Google Scholar helps you find relevant work across the world of scholarly research. However, you may encounter some issues:
  • Google Scholar Issues:(scholar.google.com): If your topic is scholarly(academic), you will find an abundance of resources on Google Scholar; HOWEVER…the results will often be abstracts or names of books or articles (some of which are only available for purchase). For this reason, this tool is very useful at the college level, because all those resources and databases would be available via your college libraries. At this school, we only have access to specific databases. So…(see next point).
  • BIG GOOGLE SCHOLAR TIP: You may encounter free articles, however, so for your purposes, only look at pdf’s. Here's the BIG TIP: to access and see to if the article is viewable or downloadable for free, click on the actual pdf link and not on the name of the article itself. Good luck!!!

Using the SIFT Method or even the CRAAP test if the goal for evaluating resources. That being said...

BE SURE YOU DO THE FOLLOWING AT THE VERY LEAST:

1. Look at that URL (to see what type of page it is and why it was created...see more about this above).
2. Look at the domain (to see if it is a .com, .gov, .edu, etc., which also provides hints as to the site's purpose, whether to inform, persuade, sell, etc.)
3. Look at the publisher/author and its/his/her credentials (to see who is responsible for the information on the site; no author is a big red flag).
4. Look for a date of publication (to see if the currency of the information makes the material worthy of being a resource).
5. Look for additional signs of quality/academic information (some signs may be a Works Cited, or footnotes, or additional links/resources, etc.).
6. See additional tips on the Searching tab page.
7. Based on the above information, determine whether or not the particular source is worthy of being included in your research.  (Note:  This is why you are frequently being referred to databases.  #1-#5 has already been completed for you by professionals who have reviewed the information for authority and currency...and have deemed the information current, accurate, and scholarly.  Databases are great for research!!!!)

When you are trying to find search terms/phrases related to your topic...OR...when databases are not available, use the tips on this page to do a better Google search.

Q:  My teacher told me that I’m only allowed to use .edu and .org and .gov sites for this paper.  How do I do that?

A:  In the search (query) box, put “your search term/phrase" and .edu .org .gov  This will force those sites to appear first in your results list. WOW!!!!

HELPFUL HINTS FOR SEARCHING

• Teachers will often tell you to use reliable and academic/scholarly websites for your research, and this often means you should avoid using .com sites.  This is because .com means “commercial” (which is a paid site that is most likely a biased, for profit site). 
• What's the difference with all these sites? The domain site type gives an indication to the author of the page, and that's important!! This helps you determine authenticity and reliability.  The domain type is a clue in determining who is responsible for the information on that page.  To help you find a credible sources, you should know some basic domain types and which are more reliable than others.
• Most reliable domains/websites (though you should always be a discerning consumer of information and question everything):  .edu (an educational domain, usually a college or university) and/or .org (a U.S. non-profit organization)
• Most likely reliable domains/websites (though you should be aware of their potential for bias):  .gov (a U.S. governmental/non-military site) and/or .mil (a military site/agency) and/or .museum (suffix used by museums)
• Least reliable domains/websites (due to known and common bias):  .com (a commercial, for-profit business site) and/or .net (a network, internet service provider, or other for-profit organization) and/or .biz (a for-profit business site) and/or .pro (a suffix used by professional who are usually privately advertising for themselves), etc.

• Avoid using personal/privately created websites: Personal websites created by relatively "unknown" individuals are considered unacceptable for academic/scholarly research...because of the strong potential for bias, the lack of information on the author, etc.

  How do I know if I’m on someone’s personal page? Here are some hints!

  • Look out for personal names included in the URL/website address:  http://www.mrsfrech.com/blog/don’t-be-scared.com  
  • Look out for identifying words like "homepage" or "students" or "faculty" in tehe URL/website address:  http://www.homepage.padua/students/it’s-just-a-speech.com  
  • Look out for symbols such as "~" or "%" because those types of symbols are used to identify personal pages):  http://www.~paduapeople.com/blog/scaredy-cat.com  OR  http://www.beabruin%/i-can-do-it.com
  • (Also watch out for other well-known personal/public pages such as wikis of any type, Angelfire, GeoCities, etc.)

So instead of just typing: superhero costume for dogs (which will pull up everything about dogs as well as all things costume as well as all things superhero), type: "superhero dog costumes"

The - symbol will exclude particular terms from your search.  For example, you might want to look up bass in regard to musicians but not fish, so you would put in...

                           bass -fish

(Note: Unfortunately, this technique works when searching websites, but it does not usually work for searching images.)

If you need specific types of resources, like maps or polls, etc., you can use the .ORG search mentioned above to help you search out those specific resources.  See the following screenshot (which shows how this individual wants information about poverty, but is specifically looking for polls and maps that contain that information).