Learn some of the best strategies for searching the web, including powerful tips and tricks for using Google, as well as navigating Google Scholar and the NWP Learning Commons databases to locate scholarly journal articles on the web.
✓ Before you start. Think about what kind of information you need, and where it might come from. Do you need statistics, opinions, scholarly articles, government reports, a corporate annual report, etc.
✓ Use Google filters. Google provides filters that allow you to limit your results by date range, format, country of upload, and more. Check out the menu of options at the top of your results page, and see the video to the right on this page for tips.
✓ Google Scholar. Try Google Scholar to find open access scholarly articles AND scholarly articles in the NWP Learning Commons databases. See the video below for tips.
✓ Learn Google Search Shortcuts. There are many different shortcuts you can include in your search, such as site-specific searching to find information on certain types of websites, as well as in-site searching to find information on one particular websites. See the “Searching Google” box on this page for more.
Check out this video by Claire Wollen (2016) about Google Scholar.
Selecting GPRC/NWP in your Library Links setting in Google Scholar will tag some of the resources that the institution has access to when you are searching in Google Scholar.
Step 1: Select the option bars on the Google Scholar homepage.
Step 2: Select "Settings."
Step 3: Select "Library Links."
Step 4: Search for "Grande Prairie" and "Northwestern Polytechnic" and check all the boxes.
If you are searching for online materials on sites that are not directly connected to the Learning Commons site (e.g. Google Scholar, Wikipedia, Pubmed) you might be asked to pay for materials before you can access them. Do not pay for online materials! First, check to see if NWP already has access to the sources by searching for the title in our catalogue or by using one of the two options below (Library Links or LibKey Nomad). If NWP does not have access to an article, you can request it through Interlibrary Loan.
LibKey Nomad is an extension that you can add to Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Brave, and Vivaldi.
If you are searching off-campus on Google Scholar, Wikipedia, or PubMed this extension will indicate which resources are available through NWP and provide you with a link.
Look for this symbol on any articles you are accessing off-campus:
Check out this video (The Learning Portal Ontario, 2017) about web resources.
Google is a powerful search tool, but its additional features are under-utilized. Learn about the various filtering and advanced search features available to you.
Things to consider:
Research can be done using multiple tools such as Google and library databases.
Always evaluate what you find to ensure that you're using credible sources in your assignments.
When you do a Google search, you can filter your results to see only news, videos, books, and more.
To filter your results, choose the type of results (News, Videos, etc.) from the menu at the top of the results list. Click More to see other options such as Books.
To filter news by date:
Statistics Canada is a website and government agency legislated to provide statistics for Canada and each of its provinces.
Find more statistics by Googling the topic you want to know more about and adding the words Canada statistics. For example, homeless youth Canada statistics.
As with all research online, be sure to assess the following aspects of the information:
Google allows you to filter your search results to images. When searching for images for your assignments, search for images that you are allowed to reuse.
To search for reusable images in Google:
Search for your chosen search terms and click Images from the menu.
Click Tools to display the Tools menu for images.
Click Usage Rights and select Creative Commons licenses from the drop-down menu. This will narrow your results to images with Creative Commons licenses.
Filter your search by size, colour or image type as needed using the options in the Tools menu.
Click on the suggested keywords to narrow your search with more specific keywords, as needed.
Just like information, most images you use will need to be cited or attributed in some way. When you find an image you are allowed to use, ask yourself the following questions:
Did my instructor tell me the image has to be cited in APA or MLA format, or that I just need to "give credit"?
Is there a specific way the website is telling me to give credit, such as the image creator's name and URL?
What is the URL of this image? (It's not just www.google.ca!)
By using quotation marks in your search, you can search for an exact phrase where specific words are directly beside each other. For example, “improve your body image.”
Sometimes, if Google can't find results for all of your search terms, it gives you results of the best match. To ensure that all results MUST include a particular word, you can use quotation marks around that important word, e.g. “body image” and “food.”
To search for information on pages within a single website:
This will retrieve all pages on the specific website that contain your search terms. In the example, google would retrieve pages on travel.gc.ca (Government of Canada travel website) that contain the term COVID-19.
You can search for specific types of websites by searching for specific domain types.
Type your search terms into the search box.
Add site: and the domain type for which you are searching, e.g. children poverty site:.org
You can search for specific files, such as PDFs, by adding file: followed by the document type after your search terms. E.g. Elon Musk file:.pdf
Type your search terms into the search box.
Add site: and the domain type for which you are searching, e.g. children poverty site:.org
You can open Google Advanced search using either of the following methods:
Navigate to google.ca/advanced_search
Begin your search on google.com and then click Settings > Advanced Search.
The Advanced Search Screen gives you tips on how to write out your search. For example:
Using quotation marks will keep words together as a phrase, e.g. "elon musk"
Using a minus sign (-) will exclude certain words, e.g. "elon musk" -spacex
Capitalization does not matter.
Google Scholar is a search engine for scholarly articles and case law. Not all articles will be full text, and these search results will be different from the articles you will find by searching through your college library; however, if you cannot access an article through Google Scholar, you may be able to find it through the NWP Learning Commons site.
Date range: Choose the currency of your results.
Cited by: View other articles that list this article as a reference.
Citations: Click on the quotation mark to get an auto-generated citation. Just be sure to check it against the library's citation guides before including it in your assignment.
Related articles: If you find a good article you can see similar ones.
Create alert: If you will be working on a project over the course of a semester, set up an alert to get notified when new articles are published that match your search terms.
Don't miss out on articles. Set up Google Scholar to check if the full text of articles is available via NWP.
Attribution
Unless otherwise stated, the material in this guide is from the Learning Portal created by College Libraries Ontario. Content has been adapted for the NWP Learning Commons in June 2021. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons BY NC SA 4.0 International License.
All icons on these pages are from The Noun Project. See individual icons for creator attribution.