Google and Google Scholar

Google is useful for:

• defining terms and concepts
• locating images and video resources
• finding official statistical data
• finding government reports
• searching for specific websites

Google is not useful for:

• looking for scholarly resources
• looking for peer reviewed resources
  • this is when you should use Library Search and our extensive databases

Can I use Google Scholar?

Google Scholar searches for academic sources. It can be useful for: 

• looking for grey literature such as conference proceedings
• finding who has cited an article
• locating obscure references or items cited incorrectly

Some simple planning before you start can make your search more effective:

• break down your topic into key concepts to know exactly what you are looking for
• keep your search words simple and put the most important word/s first
• choose descriptive words; use nouns where possible
• don't use 'Stop' words which search engines are programmed to ignore
   "how", "because" or "what'' are examples of stop words   
• use words a relevant website is likely to use

Google isn't the only search engine you can use. Do your search in different search engines and compare the results.
Here are some alternatives:

• DuckDuckGo (Private company which emphasises user privacy)
• DogPile (performs metasearches from Google, Yahoo and Bing)
• Bing (Microsoft)

If you are having trouble identifying the key concepts of your assessment, complete the library module on analysing your topic.