Great Depression: Websites

When searching for information on the Internet, it's important to remember that anyone can post anything. Always evaluate websites critically. Follow the five W's:

• Who wrote the article? What are their credentials, and are they sponsored by someone?
• What relevance does the article have to your research question?
• When was the article published? Is it out of date?
• Where does their information come from? Do they provide sources?
• Why was this site created? What seems to be its purpose?

Get more out of Google with a few tricks:

• Use "AND" between keywords to search them together (i.e. "madagascar AND biodiversity"), and "OR" between them to substitute one for the other (i.e. "madagascar OR indian ocean").
• Use the minus sign "-" to exclude a term (i.e. "andes -mints").
• Search a specific domain using "site:" followed by the domain after your keyword. For instance, "biodiversity site:.edu" will provide results only from academic institutions.

For more, check out Google's own guide to refining searches.