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CAL 103: Writing and Communications Colloquium

This guide will help CAL 103 students get started with their research.

How Does Google Work?

Google's search engine is the result of years of work and refinement by the company.

Here's a short introduction to how it works (though with the very positive attitude you'd expect from a company talking about itself and not a lot of reflection).

Google and Your Data

Google collects and sells your activities on the search engine and when using Google products such as Chrome, Google Drive, Google Photos, and others.

You can limit what they track about you through your privacy settings.

Google Better

The better you express what you're searching for, the more likely you are to find it.

Google and the academic databases to which the Library subscribes share some search strategies in common, while Google also has some that are unique. Use these tips to make Google work better for you.

 

Search Methods: Google and Academic Databases

Operators
Symbols to make your search more accurate, which can be used in most databases. Classic operators: and/or/or not
AND
AND brings back results that include both terms listed. However, Google reads "and" between all the words in a search string automatically, so you do not need to use it in a Google search.
OR
Expand your search to all of the results for your terms.
potato OR chip
NOT
- (minus) symbol: If you want to exclude a term, links, or sites to make your search results more specific to your needs.
potato NOT chip

 

Wildcards
While in many databases the asterisk allows for the searching of different spellings of a word (cat* = cat, cats, catch, etc), Google includes the different spellings automatically in a search, so the wildcard search here is for full words and terms rather than within a word.
* (asterisk)
Use as a place holder for an unknown word or term.

four *, seven years ago 

Exact Term
A search method you can use almost anywhere!
Quotations
Put quotes around a multi-word term brings back the exact term in word order.

"potato chip"

Search Methods: Google Only


site:

Only search on certain sites. Use an asterisk to search for all sites with a particular domain.

potato site:nytimes  = Posts from the NY Times that mention Afghanistan

potato –site:wikipedia.org  = Results about potatoes but NOT any from wikipedia.org

potato site:*.gov  = Results about potatoes from government sites/agencies

 
link:

Search for sites link to a certain URL

link: stevens.edu


info:

Get information about the url and related sites to your search. Can include cache information too.

potato info:fda.gov

 

filetype:

Look for a particular type of file like pdf, jpg, png, etc.

potato info:fda.gov filetype:pdf


Intitle: 

Look for a word in the title.

intitle:potato

 

@ #

Social media searches.

@scwlibrary

#scwlibrarytrivia

You can combine any of these operators with a space to get results. Try:

potato intitle:chip filetype:pdf
"potato chip" intitle:bag filetype:pdf

Connect Google Scholar to the Library

Configure your Google Scholar account to have search results link to Library resources.

 

1. From scholar.google.com, click on the 3-horizontal line menu icon at the top left:

Or go directly to the customizable Google Scholar page here.

 

2.  From the drop-down menu, click on Settings:

 

3. On the next screen, click on Library links:

 

4. In the search box, enter Stevens Institute of Technology:

4b. Click the two Stevens Institute of Technology boxes:

You have now linked your Google Scholar account to the Library. Once you have done so, your results will show connections to Library resources.

Example search: "hybrid vehicle":

 

Your results should have links on the right with the "Full Text @ SCW Library" for applicable articles: 

 

Clicking on the links brings you to the Library's catalog where you can access the full text: