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Human Ecology

This a Research Guide created for the Department of Human Ecology

Your Friend, Google

Used cautiously, Google may serve as a fantastic resource for your searches. Just remember to evaluate the source carefully for Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose (a.k.a. CRAAP). Google is best to find:

  • PRIMARY RESOURCES required for many classes, such as a document, recording, video or other artifact that is created by the advocacy organization.
  • EXAMPLES organizational webpages, news releases, policy papers, social media posts,etc.

Tips for Searching Google

Once you have located newspaper articles and other sources, you may want to find out more about the various groups mentioned in those texts.

With their blogs and other social media outlets, web sites maintained by particular communities and groups of people, may serve as your primary resources to collect pros and cons for your topic.

  • Expect biased content.
  • Expect strong language pro or con.
  • Expect local context.

And so on. Use these sources wisely in your paper by placing them in the larger context of your topic.

Google News

Sorted by relevance by default, you can get the most important content from Google News. Or, you can limit the search by time, if you need news from a particular period via Custom range.

Tools also allow you to retrieve blogs only, i.e., opinion pieces that can point you to further resources or give you more ideas how to move forward with your topic.

Evaluating Sources

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