Research Strategies

Searching for information in a digital world can be a time consuming and complicated task. The amount and quality of information available is tremendous and it is very hard to discover good quality information that will help with your project.


This Guide looks at search strategies using online tools.

Creating a research grid

A research grid is a simple way to frame your research and to help your refine what you are looking for. The first step is to create a table in a document. Then add questions you would like to find out down the left hand side. Give yourself two columns to place the answers, from two different websites. This simple hint will allow you to compare the authenticity of information.

Using Keywords

Keywords are the keys to unlocking information on the internet.

The keywords that you enter in the Google basic search box are called terms. As you look for information, try to use terms that are commonly used and that are absolutely essential to your research question.

A group of terms is called a search string. Try building your search one term at a time, just as you would add beads to a string. You don’t need to add a + or the word and between the terms, but you must leave a space between each term and the next.

Google Advanced Searching

Creating a search string that uses some combination of specific terms, a phrase search using quotations, a negative term, and even site operator can reduce the number of your search results from a few million to fewer than one hundred! It’s best to build one or two terms at a time, adding terms to your string as needed based on your results.

The graphics below provide some advanced examples of using search strings.

Some key ideas...

  • If you type site:.gov this will focus your search to only websites that contain .gov in the website address. This can help filter information to information created by government which can sometimes be more trustworthy (but not always :)
  • If you use the ~ symbol and then a word it will search for similar terms.
  • Using parentheses around "two or more words" it will search for the exact phrase
  • If you use dates in a search e.g. 2008..2011 with the dots it will search for results from within your designated time frame.

Comparing sources of information:

An important skill is to compare the authenticity of information you have found. Using the websites and information in the table see if you can answer any of the following questions?

  • Author and publisher: often a website will provide contact information at the bottom of a page, this could provide a hint if the website is written by one person or developed by an organization.
  • URL link: the URL link to the website often provides a hint to the website. If the heading contains the word .blog it maybe a personal website of opinions. Websites containing the suffix .gov are sometimes more trustworthy.
  • Currentness: how recent the information is might be a hint of the website is regulary checked or updated. Often you can find this information at the bottom of the website in the footer.
  • Advertising: Does the website contain lots of bright, annoying advertisements. These are ways for a website to gain revenue and often indicate the information on website if not always authentic.
  • The following handout developed by CommonSense Media is an excellent tool to test the quality of websites.