Bing General web search engine from Microsoft.
DuckDuckGo A general search engine with a focus on user privacy.
Google Considered the first stop by many Web searchers. Has a large index and results are known for their high relevancy. Includes ability to search for images, and products, among other features.
Google Scholar One of Google's specialized search tools, Google Scholar focuses primarily on information from scholarly and peer-reviewed sources.
Microsoft Academic MA employs advances in machine learning, semantic inference, and knowledge discovery to help you explore scholarly information in more powerful ways than ever before.
WolframAlpha A computational search engine that generates answers to factual queries using data sets.
Yahoo! A combination search engine and human-compiled directory, Yahoo also allows you to search for images, Yellow Page listings, and products.
Yippy A search engine that groups results into clusters based on similarity.
Content from University of Rhode Island Internet Search Tools: Internet Resources https://uri.libguides.com/wsearch
| Operator | What it does | Example |
|---|---|---|
|
: colon |
Search for results on a specific site or domain type |
site:gov |
|
" quotation marks |
Look for an exact word or phrase by putting it in quotes | "One Hundred Years of Solitude" |
|
- hyphen |
Use a hyphen before a word or site to exclude it from your search results | Civil war -site:wikipedia.org |
| filetype: | Use to limit results to a certain file format, such as PDF or DOC | cats filetype:pdf |
.com = Commercial site. The information provided by commercial interests is generally going to shed a positive light on the product it promotes. While this information might not necessarily be false, you might be getting only part of the picture. Remember, there's a monetary incentive behind every commercial site in providing you with information, whether it is for good public relations or to sell you a product outright.
.edu = Educational institution. Sites using this domain name are schools ranging from kindergarten to higher education. If you take a look at your school's URL you'll notice that it ends with the domain .edu. Information from sites within this domain must be examined very carefully. If it is from a department or research center at an educational institution, it can generally be taken as credible. However, students' personal Web sites are not usually monitored by the school even though they are on the school's server and use the .edu domain.
.gov = Government. If you come across a site with this domain, then you're viewing a federal government site. All branches of the United States federal government use this domain. Information such as Census statistics, Congressional hearings, and Supreme Court rulings would be included in sites with this domain. The information is considered to be from a credible source.
.org = Traditionally a non-profit organization. Organizations such as the American Red Cross or PBS (Public Broadcasting System) use this domain suffix. Generally, the information in these types of sites is credible and unbiased, but there are examples of organizations that strongly advocate specific points of view over others, such as the National Right to Life Committee and Planned Parenthood. You want to give this domain scrutiny. Some commercial interests might be the ultimate sponsors of a site with this suffix.
.mil = Military. This domain suffix is used by the various branches of the Armed Forces of the United States.
.net = Network. You might find any kind of site under this domain suffix. It acts as a catch-all for sites that don't fit into any of the preceding domain suffixes. Information from these sites should be given careful scrutiny.
Content from University of South Carolina Upstate Library Evaluating Information https://uscupstate.libguides.com/c.php?g=257977&p=1721715