How to research on the Internet
Google has become the world reference for internet searches.
It is not uncommon to find graduate and even graduates who do not know how to do academic research correctly. Colleges and universities fail to teach students how to do reliable research on the Internet. The Internet has an arsenal of data that can be very useful for your research if you know how to find it.
Here you will find tips for efficient search and examples of search engines that can be rather useful to you, in addition to the famous Google.
The first mistake some people make when using Google is to think that the first results that appear are always the best for their research. Actually, they are only the closest match the Google engine selects for you, considering the words YOU used. But, if your description is not good enough, or is ambiguous, you will be served bad results. Therefore, try and be as objective as possible in your question and your topic of research, and avoid double meaning words, or concepts that may mean more than one thing without specifying the meaning. You need to think about the information you wish to obtain – and also the information you don´t need.
Choose your search words wisely
To identify them, just divide your topic of research into subjects.
Suppose you want to understand the causes for a given environmental disaster. Your topic of research could be: Mistakes that caused the environmental tragedy in…(place). You need to discard the words that describe relationships. Try instead: Environmental tragedy – (place) – Causes.
It is at this time that you need to find synonyms for these words in order to refine your findings. Use similar words, as not all articles that address your search topic will use your words. But look, putting only the location in the search field, for example, will end up in a series of undesirable results for your research. This is why it is important to know synonyms for the object you are researching. Google has a page with tips to help you find information in an efficient way. Check it out.
If your research requires consulting academic literature, you can use Google Scholar as a search engine, but remember it has its limitations. At the end of this text you will find a list of sites that may help you overcome such limitations.
Evaluating results – Why should you be sceptical of your research results? First, because anyone can publish anything these days on the Internet. In addition, distorted or outdated information is also very common.
Always check for inconsistencies in found information, if the author offers the source(s) of information, where it was published, for which audience, if the text presents fallacies, and if it has no explicit biases. Be, indeed, sceptical! The quality of your work will depend on it, so don´t ignore these possibilities.
Why go beyond Google?
Google is undoubtedly a great facilitator in our lives, but due to the huge amount of information available, it may not be ideal if your research requires rigor. It can also hide older and more relevant information. As an alternative you can use search engines for specific niches, where you will find higher quality scientific papers.
Here are some useful alternative or complementary scientific databases:
- Sci-Hub:is an online repositor of over 51,000,000 scientific articles, available on its website.
- Pub-Med: is a search engine with free access to the MEDLINE database, with information related to health.
- Web of Science: is a database that provides access to over 9.200 journals from different areas of knowledge.
- GREENR: A large database focused on information related to environmental sciences.
- Wiley-Blackwell Cochrane: A library well-known in medical community for providing accurate and up-to-date reports.
- Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy:A search engine that gives access to a collection of studies on the most varied philosophical terms.
- LibGen: A search engine for articles and books on several topics, allowing free access to paid content.
- PsycInfo: A great database for all things related to psychology.