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PSY200 Kraska

This Course Guide will help PSY200 students complete their Team Project Presentations.

DON'T PAY FOR ARTICLES! Use Interlibrary Loan (ILL)

Sample Google search

With a few tricks, you can get relevant search results in one try using Google.

Google search using intitle: and site: commands.

Learn how to set up this advanced Google search below.

Google like a librarian

We all use it - now let's learn to use it better! Improving your Googling skills will save you time and make it easier to identify better sources of information. Tips and tricks are explained below.

  1. Use quotation marks around your search terms to search for the words in the exact order you would like, instead of separately.

Google - "quotation marks"

  1. Use intitle: to retrieve webpages with your keywords in the title of the webpage

Google - intitle: search

  1. Use site:. to retrieve webpages from URLs in the domain (.gov, .edu, .org) you specify.  

Google - site:. search

  1. Use - (a hyphen or minus sign) in front of words to exclude them from your search results.

Google - NOT

  1. Use OR in between words to have either or both of the words included in your search results. OR must be capitalized. This is a good way to search for synonyms.

Google - OR
In the above example, Google will find results that include (election AND fraud) and (voter AND fraud).

  1. Use filetype: to retrieve specific types of files (instead of html webpages). Works for finding most file types.

filetype: search

  1. Use several strategies at once for very specific results.

Google - all of the above search strategies!

What is a "good" source?

Abe Lincoln, president and CCC alumGreat question. A "good" source is both credible and relevant.

Relevancy means the source helps you answer your questions, learn widely about your topic, and think about your topic in new ways.

Credibility, when applied to an information source, means trustworthy. Trustworthiness is tricky to determine. Some evaluative questions to keep in mind include:

  • Is this information deliberately biased, and is the creator transparent about that bias?
  • Who created it? Are they an expert? Do they need to be?
  • When was it published? What is the publication, and does that publication have a good reputation?
  • Why was it published: to inform, persuade, entertain, etc.?
  • Does it cite its sources? Does that matter for your intended use of the information?

Ultimately it is up to you to determine — using research and your own critical judgment and The CRAP Test — whether a source is credible or not. And "credible" can mean something and look different to everyone. Your instructors expect you to use credible, authoritative information in your projects and papers, so be upfront and clear about why you trust the information your choose to use.

CCC Librarians are here to help you with this question, too. ♥

Abe adapted from public domain photo Abraham Lincoln [image]. (1863). Available from https://upload.wikimedia.org/

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