You may use Google on a daily basis, but there are useful tips & tricks you may not be familiar with. Here are two that may help you during your studies.
1. Search within a specific site in Google: This allows you to search only within specific websites or domains. If you would like to limit your search results to websites for US higher education institutions for example (i.e. a college or university), you can do so by including your search term + site: and immediately proceeding that with .edu
Example search term site:.edu
2. Search by file type in Google: This allows you to limit your search results to a specific type of file, such as a PDF. To do so, include your search term + filetype: and then the 3 letter file abbreviation.
Example search term filetype:pdf
Examples of Search Entries
If you can’t get enough of a certain topic covered in class, these two search tips may be useful for finding more resources from another academic institution. If you wanted to find PDF files from a college that contain the search term utilitarianism, your Google search entry might be:
utilitarianism site:.edu filetype:pdf
To find PowerPoint presentations from a college that contain the search term stoichiometry, your Google search entry might be:
stoichiometry site:.edu filetype:ppt
For more search tips & tricks, visit Google’s page on the subject.