User:Lonny/Search and research tips

The following are search and research tips prepared for my students, but available for all.

Level up your Google skills[edit | edit source]

• • use quotes for exact matches: "search term"
  • use around(2) for words close to each other: search around(2) term
  • use - to prevent results: "search term" -semester
  • use specific units: kWh
  • search a specific domain: search term site:gov
  • search a specific site: search term site:lifehacker.com
  • search by file type: search term filetype:pdf
  • search in a range of numbers: number..number search term
  • only find in title: intitle:search term
  • see lifehacker and this cheat sheet for more.
• Find in Wikipedia or Appropedia and then follow their references

Journals and Books[edit | edit source]

• The library is your friend.
• If you are at Cal Poly Humboldt, check out their library and the the CCAT library!
• Google Scholar works.
  • If you are at Cal Poly Humboldt, check out these discipline based guides - https://libguides.humboldt.edu/.
• Academia.org and Researchgate.net are great resources.
• Also see http://www.doaj.org/ for a directory of open access journals!
• If there is a journal article you can't access due to a paywall, consider sending a nice (and short) request to the authors. They often can and will share it with you directly!