Be the Change: Websites

Get more out of Google with a few tricks:

• Use AND between keywords to search them together (i.e. music AND education), and OR between them to substitute one for the other (i.e. education OR school).
• Use quotation marks to search an exact term. Example: "mental health awareness" will provide results with those words in that exact order.
• Use the minus sign - to exclude a term (i.e. illiteracy -children).
• Search a specific domain using site: followed by the domain after your keyword. For instance, "global warming" site:.edu will provide results only from academic institutions.

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

• Google News - Searchable and categorized collection of many different news sources.
• The Learning Network - From the New York Times, opinions and more context on current events for students.
• YourCommonwealth - Youth perspectives on global issues.
• YR Media - News, opinion and other content from young journalists.

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 Is it out of date?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?