Research Guides: Google & Google Scholar: Overview

Searching the Internet

While many people use Google for their internet search, other options are out there. You may wish to use a more privacy-based search engine, such as DuckDuckGo.

However, there is no alternative for scholarly articles that is the equivalent of Google Scholar. See the Google Scholar page for information about how to connect Google Scholar to your library account so you can use it to find articles from the library's databases, as well as tips on how to better use Google Scholar and you you can use Google Scholar to update your research.

This research guide explains how to search for articles in the Franklin University Library using Google Scholar. It also contains tips for using search engines on the internet.

DuckDuckGo
Privacy-based alternative to Google for internet searching.

Boolean Logic is a system of rules (or commands) to express the relationship of two or more concepts. The most commonly used commands (also called operators) -- AND, OR, and NOT -- can be used to link search terms or narrow search results. The correct use of Boolean operators in a search, whether it be in a search engine (such as Google or DuckDuckGo), a library catalog, or a research database will produce more relevant and reliable results.

AND: used in order to require that all search terms be present on the web pages listed in results. For example, you may want to find pages referencing both rules and laws.
- You use the command like this: rules AND laws
- Since AND is the default operator in search engines (like Google), it is unnecessary to type it. For example, you can type rules laws and your results will retrieve pages that include both rules and laws on the same page
OR: used in order to allow any of the specified search terms to be present on the web pages listed in results. For example, you may want to find pages that contain either of the words America or U.S.
- You use the command like this: rules OR laws
- Will broaden your search and increase the number of results. Note that OR works only in upper case between search terms in Google.
NOT: used in order to require that a particular search term NOT be present on web pages listed in results.
- In a library catalog or research database, you use the command like this: plants NOT trees
- In Google, you must use the minus sign (-) without spaces. Example: plants-trees

Phrase Search (" "): Google will look up a phrase as one item if it is surrounded in quotes. Be careful with this as it may result in too narrow of a search.
- Example: "solar industry"
Tilde (~): A tilde in front of the word will search among that and its synonyms. Note that there is NO space between the tilde and the word.
- Example: ~crime
Wildcard Search (*): The asterisk symbol is sometimes known as the wildcard. Use this to search for plurals or spelling variations of words. You can also use this if you're unsure of a word in a phrase. Examples include:
- learn* - finds learning, learners, learns, learned, etc.
- behav* - finds behavior, behaviors, behavioral, behaviorism etc.
Site Search: Search one site (like franklin.edu) or limit your results to a domain like .edu, .org or .gov
- Domain: solar industry site:edu (This will search only .edu sites that contain the phrase solar industry.)
- Specific web page: academic integrity site:franklin.edu (This will only search the franklin.edu site for academic integrity.)