Using Google

There are times when it is necessary to search Google rather than one of the databases, but searching Google can often be frustrating; you get too many hits, many are not relevant, you are prompted for payment, there are issues of quality and bias etc.

There are techniques that you can use to minimise these problems.

Firstly if you are searching for journal articles and academic material, use Google Scholar. If you are searching on campus you will have the locateit link on the right hand side, which will enable you to check if we have access to the article. Some of the articles may be freely available, so look out for the pdf link. For others you can use the Document Delivery service which will cost £2 per article, so there is no need to purchase the article.

When working off-campus you can set Coventry University as your home university, so will get the Locateit link. To do this in Google Scholar, click on settings (top right hand corner), then 'Library Links'. You can then search for Coventry University and save it.

Searching can be improved by using the same techniques that you use when searching databases, such as "phrase searching". There is also an advanced search that you can access by clicking on the arrow at the end of the search box. The advanced search is still fairly basic, but it should make your search more focussed.

You can search for results from a specific site  by putting site:[type of site or name of site], e.g. site:ac will return results from university websites. You can use this to search for results in specific websites too.

To eliminate irrelevant results use the minus sign (-) in front of the word you wish to exclude, e.g. Jaguar -car will find results for Jaguars, but not the car. When you use the minus sign there must be a space before it, but not after the word you wish to exclude.

The order of the words you put in the search box can also affect the results. If you are not getting what you are looking for, trying altering the order of the words.

Google soon remembers your searches and returns results it thinks you want to get, based on your past searches. This can sometimes be useful, e.g. for finding restaurants or shops selling specific products in your area, but could also be restrictive. If you want to eliminate this problem, if you are logged in to Google, go to settings to remove your browsing history. You might also want to try using DuckDuckgo.com instead of Google. This will give you different results that you may not find in Google.

When searching Goolgle, many people don't look beyond the first page. Try going a few pages in and you might find interesting results.

There are lots of other features that are worth exploring. Have a look at http://www.google.com/insidesearch/ for more information including the tips and tricks section.