Google is a wonderful tool for many things. Google is also a great starting point for research. When you Google your topic you can see what the "conversations" are around the topic. I usually go to Google at the beginning stages of research to find out if there is enough being "said" about what I want to learn about. Sometimes there might be 1000+ results on a topic but if they all are saying the same thing that won't help you get different points of view. If you Google a topic and find out there are many things being "said" then that is probably a good topic to explore. When I am ready to find reliable, credible sources that I want to cite in my paper I use the databases.
Google Scholar is a search engine much like Google except it looks only at scholarly information (i.e. journal articles, academic papers, etc). You search just like you would with Google except when you get the results you may have limited option as to what you can see as full text.
In the image below you will see the results for a search. To the right you will see the circle and the rectangle, if there is a pdf or html you can view the article without having a subscription. If there is no link then you need to have a paid subscription to that site. You will find many free article that you can use.
Boolean Searching on the Internet- http://www.internettutorials.net/boolean.asp
What is a Boolean Search?
Boolean searching is built on a method of symbolic logic developed by George Boole, a 19th century English mathematician. Boolean searches allow you to combine words and phrases using the words AND, OR, NOT (known as Boolean operators) to limit, broaden, or define your search. A good researcher should know how to do a Boolean Search.
Quotations: Placing quotations around a specific phrase will help you narrow results in order to find information containing that exact wording.
OR: Using OR broadens a search to include results that contain either of the words you're looking for.
OR logic
college OR university
AND: Using AND narrows a search by combining terms.
AND logic
poverty AND crime
NOT: Using NOT will narrow a search by exclusion. (Some search engines, like Google, recognize the minus (-) symbol, instead of the word NOT).
NOT logic
