Find the information

This section will cover the 'where' and the 'how' of finding information for your research.

Finding the right information for your assignment topic may seem daunting at first. The web can be a good starting place.

When you search for information on a topic, the list of results may include Wikipedia or social media sites such as YouTube, blogs, Twitter, and Facebook.

Can you use information from Wikipedia or social media websites for academic study? Take the quiz to find out.

Activity: The web and academic study

Google and other search engines

The web is a rich source of information. Students usually use search engines like Google to find information about an assignment topic, but finding useful resources among many pages of search results can be challenging.

Google and other search engines are easy to search, but they produce a large number of results and many that are not relevant to the topic.

Fortunately, you can conduct a much more efficient search and save yourself lots of time and effort by using a few simple search commands. Try Lifehack's 20 Tips to use Google Search efficiently.

Google is a good place to find background or general information, but you need to be aware of its limitations for academic research.

Why can't I just Google it?
This question is covered in more detail in the next tutorial.

Using Wikipedia for academic research

When you do a Google search about a topic you will most likely find Wikipedia listings at the top of your search results. However, Wikipedia is not considered a reliable source of information. This is because we do not know who has added information, what their expertise on the subject is or if the information they have added is accurate.

Wikipedia can be a great place to start your search as it can give you a general understanding of a topic and you can use the sources listed at the bottom of the page as part of your search. However, it is not recommended that you cite Wikipedia articles in your assignments.

Google Scholar

Another way to search the web more effectively is to use Google Scholar as your search engine. Google Scholar is a simple way to search for scholarly literature in articles, theses, books, abstracts and other formats.

If you access Google Scholar from the RMIT Library website using your RMIT login, your search results will link you back to the full text resources held by the Library. Go to the Library Google Scholar page for more information.

For more help on using Google Scholar for research go to Google Scholar search tips or find a video on YouTube.