Research help

It is often more effective to search for information on the Internet (meaning freely accessible websites not restricted behind paywalls) when you are looking for:

• Statistics
• Blogs
• Open Access journals
• Government documents, including data sets, research reports, bills, laws, speeches....
• Crowd-sourced or user-created types of information that have historically been excluded from research and publishing
• Topics or ways of knowing that have historically been excluded from research and publishing
• Research reports authored by think tanks, lobbying groups, research organizations
• Infographics
• Company information
• Information about a topic that you know nothing about 

As Google embraces AI, its search functionality changes. Go here for Google and AI updates (tried and tested by your human librarian friends).

Select each Google-specific strategy below to learn how to use it and why it is helpful.

• Use keywords

  

• tell Google what is most important to you

  Make sure to use keywords - words that are likely to appear in the websites or articles that you're looking for.
  • Why? Save yourself time. Save yourself from the frustration of sifting through garbage results.
    • In this example: Instead of saying friendships, I used relationships, because that’s a more academic term that researchers' or medical sites tend to use. Regarding this topic, researchers are who I want to learn from.
    • In this example: I used doomscrolling instead of news addiction because doomscrolling describes a very specific phenomenon involving both obsessively reading the news and the mental anguish that accompanies that action.

• site:

  

• search for a specific type of site

  • Use the special operator site: to retrieve webpages from URLs with the domain suffix (.gov, .edu, .org) you specify. Do not put spaces between the operator and the domain suffix.

    • Why? Website domain suffixes reveal the type of website or organization associated with it. Knowing this background can help you decide if you trust the information. Learn about website domain suffixes.

  search within a specific site

  • Use the special operator site: to retrieve webpages from the domain name (clackamas.edu or hhs.gov) you specify.

    • Why? Google is a powerful search tool and usually more effective than the search tools built into individual websites. The site: operator tells Google to search throughout that single domain for your search terms.
    • What is a domain name? The text that you type into an address bar to reach a specific website. CCC's domain name is clackamas.edu; the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is hhs.gov.

• - (a hyphen or minus sign)

  

• exclude words

  Use the special operator - (a hyphen or minus sign) in front of words to exclude them from your search results. Do not put a space between the operator and your search term.

• "quotation marks"

  

• find an exact match

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

    • Why? Quotation marks override Google's default search system. When you want search results featuring an exact quote or phrase, using quotation marks around your search terms is the best way to ensure that happens.
  • Use quotation marks around a single search term.
    • Why? This guarantees that your exact word appears on the webpages you get back. No substitutions or related terms.

• intitle:

  

• search in the title

  Use the special operator intitle: to retrieve webpages with your keywords in the title of the webpage. Do not put a space between the operator and your search term.
  • Why? This helps you find more topic-relevant resources. If your keyword is in the title of a webpage, article, or video, the resource is probably about your topic.

• * (asterisks symbol):

  

• fill-in-the-blank

  Use the special operator * (asterisk symbol) as an invitation for Google to fill-in-the-blank. The * command only works on whole words, not parts of words.
  • Why? This is a useful way to ask open-ended questions or get suggestions. Google uses the * to fill-in-the-blank and find popular or contextual matches. (The search example above could return results correlating doomscrolling to anxiety, gender, FOMO, risk taking, and more.)

• OR

  

• search with synonyms or related ideas

  Use OR in between synonyms or related ideas to have either term show up in your search results. OR must be capitalized.
  • Why? This is a good way to search for synonyms. Google automatically searches for related words, but if you have specific synonyms or related keywords in mind, tell Google to find them.
  • Why? This is a good way to search for related ideas, or different ideas related to the same topic.
    • Example:  [ happiness OR "quality of life" joyscrolling ]  could be used to search for how joyscrolling impacts either happiness or the quoted phrase "quality of life"
    • Example:  [ income OR "life expectancy" joyscrolling ]  could be used to search for two different ideas, both related to joyscrolling.

• filetype:

  

• find downloadable files

  Use the special operator filetype: to retrieve specific types of files (instead of html webpages). Works for finding common file type extensions (docx, pdf, xlsx, mp4); see a more complete list. Do not put a space between the operator and your search term.
  • Why? We find this useful when searching for a free PDF or an editable template (e.g., project management template filetype:docx)

• combine several strategies

  

• Google like a librarian

  Use several strategies at once for very specific results.
  • Why? Take back agency over your search results. See beyond what AI or a search algorithm tells you to look at. Define your expectations of credibility, accuracy, and voice in your search results. 
  • Why? Save yourself time. Feel like a searching superstar when you quickly get high-quality and useful results that you told Google how to find, instead of Googling telling you to look at.

  Google like a computer scientist

  If this sort of specialized searching is fun and useful for you, check out this regularly updated, publicly viewable Google doc that lists a whole lot more Advanced search operators. (Maintained by Dr. Daniel M. Russell; you can Google him.)

AI Overview is not a search tool. It is an AI-generated overview resulting from your search. Overviews appear at the top of the search screen; actual search results appear underneath. The overviews provide a chatbot-like experience that includes links to learn more. 

There are advantages and drawbacks to using AI-driven search; we invite you to talk through the implications with your instructors or your friendly CCC librarian.

(Screenshot taken in May 2025. Note the information it links you to is one year old ... ancient in AI years!)

Advantages

• You immediately get a broad introduction to your topic without needing to click links.
• You can adjust Overviews to give simpler or more detailed explanations.

Drawbacks

• You don't know what you aren't seeing. AI search will block you from seeing content it deems objectionable, dangerous, unlawful...???
• You don't get to choose the sources of your content. More or less authoritative, old or new; you don't get to choose - AI does.
• Sometimes the content is wrong (funny, but wrong).
• Content creators won't get traffic on their sites because you won't visit them. Creators, who make the content that trains AI, lose out.

Coming later in 2025: Deep Search.

AI Mode is a version of Google that uses "Gemini 2.5’s advanced reasoning, thinking and multimodal capabilities" to interpret and offer information and answers to your questions, keywords, uploaded images, and more (Google). It is technically a search tool, but it does not offer search results, just answers.

Access AI Mode under the Google search bar.  

Recommendations when using AI Mode

• Do have a conversation with your instructor first about using AI Mode as a source on your assignment. Could AI Mode be considered a secondary citation?​​​​​​
• Do fact check the information AI Mode offers to you.
  • This is easy enough to do; AI Mode cites the main sources of information it pulls from.
  • Go to those sources and use your information evaluation skills to:
    • Verify the information was interpreted accurately by AI
    • Determine if the information is up-to-date enough for your needs
    • Decide if the source websites are credible for your needs
• Don't copy and paste the AI summary into your assignments. That is plagiarism: taking someone--or something--else's ideas and presenting them as your own. 

Learn more: