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Research & Instruction Librarian
Better googling
- Adding site:.xxx to a search can limit to a type of domain. This is particularly useful if you want to limit your results to government websites.
- Example: armadillos site:.gov
- Example: flowers site:.edu
- Quotation marks will retrieve results with an exact phrase, rather than a group of words anywhere in the result.
- Example: "Four score and seven years ago"
- An asterisk at the end of a word in your search will retrieve any possible ending for that word. (You can also do this in the beginning or middle of a word, but it's most commonly used this way).
- Example: machin* will retrieve results with machine, machinery, machination, etc.
- Example: lead* will retrieve results with leadership, leading, leaders, but also results about lead poisoning.
- Consider what words you're using to search might mean in other fields, and adjust if your search needs to be more specific.
- Example: "branding" means something very different in marketing than it does in agriculture.
