Rather than putting a full sentence into an online search box, it can be more productive to focus your topic down into a few search words. To combine them, follow these search tips:
icon from Google
Email reference is available Monday through Friday during the Fall and Spring semesters. We try to respond within two days.
Chat with the library 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to meet with a librarian for in-depth help with your research.
In general, we recommend searching CCSF Library resources first, because they contain material that is not freely available on the open web. However, there is lots material on the open web that is not in the library! Therefore, combining these efforts (searching library resources, and then searching the open web) can be effective.
Icon made by Freepik
Searching for information on the web efficiently requires developing a search strategy. Take your topic and think how you will turn it into search terms. While you can certainly search the web by entering a question, a stronger search strategy would be to choose the most impactful words of your question, and shape it in a way that the search engine understands.
If your research question is "What is the best solution to homelessness in the Bay Area?" the most essential elements to find are solution, homelessness, and the Bay Area. It can help to brainstorm alternatives to the words IN your research question, because different words will surface different results in your search.
Keyword |
solution | homelessness | Bay Area |
---|---|---|---|
Synonyms |
ideas proposals legislation program |
homeless unhoused housing precarity unsheltered |
San Francisco Oakland East Bay California (broader to see statewide analysis) |
Note: the quotation marks around some search terms help tell the search engine that you want results with the words stuck together exactly as you have them.
Combining three of my search concepts, a sample Google search is shown below.
"Accuracy In Media is a non-profit, grassroots citizens watchdog of the news media that critiques botched and bungled news stories and sets the record straight on important issues that have received slanted coverage."
FactCheck.org monitors the accuracy of claims by politicians, political ads and chain e-mails. We cut through the spin and tell you what is true and what is false.
Online tool for streamlining Freedom of Information Act requests.
The government's central website for the Freedom of Information Act which can help you determine if filing a FOIA request is the best option for you and help you create your request when you’re ready.
"A project of the Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center and the Carnegie-Knight Initiative, [Journalist's Resource is] an open-access site that curates scholarly studies and reports [relevant to major topics in the news]." (from the homepage)
Poynter's News University is one of the world's most innovative online journalism and media training programs ever created. From multimedia techniques to writing and reporting, we've got more than 300 free and low-cost courses. As the e-learning project of The Poynter Institute, NewsU extends Poynter’s mission as a school for journalists, future journalists, teachers of journalism and anyone interested in the craft and values of journalism.
Published by the Center for Media and Democracy, a non-profit public-interest "investigative research and reporting group," SourceWatch is a "...collaborative resource for citizens and journalists looking for documented information about the corporations, industries, and people trying to influence public policy and public opinion."