Choose the Best Resource for Your Information Need
Think About Your Information Needs
Different sources have different types of information. Depending on your assignment for IBH 310 or 320 you may need to find a variety of sources such as scholarly articles, reports, statistics, data, cases studies, and existing policies, programs, or interventions. You'll be most successful searching if you target certain sources for specific information.
For instance, news sources will be best for current perspectives and commentaries on a topic. Scholarly articles will be the most helpful source for examining research that looks at specific studies (they usually look at particular populations and are answering a very specific research question). Government websites and non-profit organizations are most likely to collect accessible data, statistics, reports, and policies.
In short...
It's best to search for scholarly articles and newspaper articles in Library Databases or Google Scholar and data/stats/reports/policies in Google.
Domain Searching
Video: How to Search by Domain
Limiting your website search to a specific domain name
One easy way to limit your web search and to help you find websites which are more applicable to your topic is to limit your search by what is called the top-level domain. Two restricted domains we often search first are .gov and .org
- The .gov domain is restricted to use only by government entitles from the USA. In general, we consider information on .gov sites to be credible. You can use this trick to target government specific websites for data or reports related to your topic.
- The .org domain is used by non-profit organizations. Note that anyone can make a non-profit websites. However, non-profits are much more likely to create reports or collect data related to your search topics so they are a great place to target online.
For example, a search for "health equity" poverty stats site:.gov will bring results from government websites with statistics. Searching for "health equity" report "climate change" site:.org will mostly get results with reports created by non-profit organizations. Try different keywords to target programs or certain policies related to your topic.
Be aware that there are some uncommon exceptions to domain restrictions. So, if you find a .gov website, for example, that you don't think is genuinely from a US government entity, check with a librarian or your instructor for advice, or don't use the site as a research source.
Advanced Google Searching
Make your Google searching more successful by using the Advanced Google Search feature. The Advanced Google Search allows you more control over your results and looks similar to the filters you see in a library databases.
Video: Google Advanced Searching