In our information rich society, a vast amount of information is published and disseminated online, so you may wish to run some general searches for information using an online search engine.
This can be a very effective way to find material such as grey literature which is not published through commercial publishing platforms, or included in online research databases.
However, the quality of these sources will always be an important consideration. Always evaluate the information you source via the search engines. An online Evaluating Information Sources tutorial is available to help you.
You can use the same search techniques you use with the online databases for your internet searching, as in this Google search example. Note the use of phrase searching and truncation. Using these techniques will help improve your search results.
Also take advantage of advanced search options offered by the search engines in order to focus your search.
Advanced Google Searching
For example Google's Advanced search has a number of options that can help improve searching. The most useful options are flagged below.
Region
Site or domain
Terms appearing
File Type
Tip
You can also use these options with their search operators within the usual search box rather than using the advanced search and drop down menus, e.g, intitle:climate change site:gov.uk filetype:pdf
