Simplify your Search

Send a student out to research something and they likely end up trying to cite the first search result Google came up with.  Teach your students a few advanced search tricks and they will likely avoid unreliable sources.

When typing into the Google Search box, (or omni-box) start by entering:

site:

This will limit the search results to only the site, or types of sites you designate.  For example, if you want avoid commercial web results you could have your students look for only .gov .edu or .org resources.


site: .gov .edu .org

After designating the type of site you want to show up in your search results, enter the topic you are researching.

For example, if you are looking for resources on Abraham Lincoln, but only want to use .gov resources your search would look like this:

site: .gov Abraham Lincoln

You can even limit your search results to only resources found within a specific website.  If you know the Library of Congress (www.loc.gov) has the best resources on Abraham Lincoln you would search the following:

site: loc.gov Abraham Lincoln


Search by Reading Level

Once you've filtered your Google Search results by site, you can then filter them again by reading level.  Google initially had teachers rate the readability of certain web resources as either Basic (roughly K-6), Intermediate (7-12), or Advanced (12+).  As new resources have been posted over time they are labeled by Google as one of these three reading level categories.

To find resources at a given level start by typing in your search, then:
1.  Click the "Search Tools" box

2.  Next, click the "All Results" drop down, then you will see "Reading Level"