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CHM 164 - Introductory Chemistry: Finding Web Sites

Research Tip: Free Web vs. Fee Web

The Free Web is made up of web pages you can find using Google and other free web search engines. Some assignments do not allow free web resources. Good material may be found here, but you might also find a lot of popular resources that are inappropriate for academic writing. Refer to our SCARAB for help in evaluating your sources.

The Fee Web (also known as the Hidden, Invisible, or Deep Web) includes subscription databases. You can limit your results to full text and scholarly, peer-reviewed articles that are often required.

Searching with Google

Once you have tried Library sources first, you may wish to use Google for background information on your research topic. This information shows how to make your Google search more effective.

  • Use quotations for phrase searching (for example, "early childhood education")
  • -site:.com added to your search will eliminate all .com sites in search results
  • site:.edu (or site:.gov) will only search within the designated domain
Google Web Search

Google: word order matters