Google Searching

Google is a robust search engine for standard searching. There are also advanced features of Google and strategies that will allow you to refine your search to find more sophisticated, relevant and reputable information on your topic. Google constantly adds new features that helps make learning easier.

Suggestions for better searching:

“Experts” (Scholars, Researchers, Professionals): Investigate where experts work or research-museums, institutes, colleges/universities

Boolean operators and more tricks- and, or, not “...” +, -, ()

Advanced Search

Domains- .gov, .edu

Organizations/Companies-that are known to be reputable and trustworthy; National Geographic, NASA

File Type: .doc, .pdf, . ppt, .jpg

Country Codes-searches for different viewpoints- Example

News outlets - beware that most news outlets contain some bias-BBC, Reuters, PBS, NPR, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal

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.

“Add-Ons” - helpful tools that add functionality and are accessible through the toolbar in Google Docs (Easy Bib, OpenClipArt, MindMeister)

Google vs. Massachusetts State Resources

Pros and Cons

Compare/Contrast