Tips for searching effective Google searching:
- Use Google advanced search to create the most precise search and for options such as limiting by date, language, and usage rights.
- Leave out small, non-descript words such as a, and, the. Google ignores most of these words anyway.
- Use clear, precise, descriptive search terms. Do not type your search as a question or statement.\
Example: instead of searching: What are the possible long-term health effects of Covid?, use precise keywords like: long-term health effects Covid
- Put exact phrases in quotes
Example: "Yellowstone National Park"
- Put a minus symbol before a word to exclude it from your search results.
Example: electric vehicles -Tesla
- Use OR between words that can be used interchangeably or to search more then one idea at a time.
Example: junior high or middle school
- Use the appropriate subset of Google depending on what you need.
Example: Google Scholar, Books, News, Images, Translate, Videos.
- MCC Library resources (books and articles) are findable in Google Scholar. Go into the settings and add McHenry County College Library, save it, and then search. Items that the library owns will be indicated to the right with a Find it @MCC link.
- Search within a specific domain or site. Remember that .org doesn't mean it's a good site and .com doesn't mean it's a bad site. The domain is just a part of the equation. Commercial websites are normally .com. But this includes many news sources (newspapers, television stations, and social media) as well as our subscription databases. Organizations generally have .org, but that doesn't indicate anything about the bias or reliability of the content. It just means that they selected a .org domain when they created their website.
Example: site:.edu
Example: site:.cdc.gov *Do not leave any spaces after the colon.*
