How to Do Real Research on Google

In universities, many professors snub Google, but it can actually used to find great information...if used correctly. The disadvantage of Google is that it doesn't always give you scholarly sources. However, if you know how to find the sources you want and utilize Google scholar, you can definitely find some good information. The advantage of Google over traditional scholarly databases is its advanced search system. The problem is that about 75% of students don't know how to use it. Due to a handout created by Professor Cheri Earl of my HONRS 290 course, I have found some great tricks to using this resource.

• How to Google
• Example of what you want to find: New York Times articles about test scores in college, but not the SATs, written between 2008 and 2010
• How to Google it
• site:nytimes.com ~college "test scores" -SATs 2008..2010
• site: only searches for pages of that site
• ~ will also search related words such as "higher education" or "university"
• "" searches for the exact phrase, not each of the words separately
• - excludes this item from the search
• .. shows results from the designated date range
• Another example: A report on the different air speed velocities of common swallows
• Don't type questions into Google
• filetype:pdf air speed intitle: velocity of *swallow
• filetype: searches only results of the file type you designate. You can use this for pdf, doc, jpg, etc
•  intitle: only shows results with that word in the title (in this case, velocity)
• * replaces itself with common terms in your search
•  Google Scholar: only academic and scholarly work
• Example: papers about photosynthesis by Dr. Ronald L. Green and Dr. Thomas P. Buttz

• author: green photosynthesis "tp buttz" 
• author: searches for this word only in the author of the article instead of the entire article
• Just typing it in (like photosynthesis) works like a normal Google search
• "" more specific results 

• More tips for Google
• for quick definitions
• define: depart
• calculator: works for basic functions
• (2*3)/5-41+2

Hopefully these tips make Google more useful. Happy Researching!