Number one, good Googling can save you heaps of time and help you smash that deadline instead of endlessly and hopelessly lurking online, hoping somehow that the assignment will just eradicate itself (sorry, not going to happen). Number two, because you’ve become a whizz on the internet, you’ll have more time to do what you enjoy like writing and analysis. And last but not least, it's a great transferable skill to have. No matter where you work, as long as there’s a computer and the internet, you’ll be able to utilise your impressive skills.

Let's get into it!

Any time? Nah.
The ‘Any Time’ tool is a really helpful element that can help you specify the dates you want your information to be sourced from. For example, if you're a writer or researcher and looking for statistics from the last two years to reflect relevance, this tool is here to help you do that. And it goes the other way too – if you’re looking for the latest, up-to-date information, you can alter the tool to the past hour.

Verbatim search
If you want to search for keywords and phrases rather than words, the Verbatim tool can specify the Google search for those particular phrases. And you can also search inside quote marks for similar results. Not too bad, am I right?

Google news
Combined with time specificities and keywords, Google news can be one of the most powerful and effective tools for your work. Its ability to keep us in the loop at all times is a perfect element to ensure you're never missing out on the most important information you need for your research. Try researching it within the past week for ‘Hong Kong’ + ‘beers’ or ‘Millennial’ + ‘TikTok’. Experiment and see what you gather in your results.

Cross-language searches
If there’s one thing that can prove to be a headache in the research journey, it's looking for up-to-date, international information. From out-of-date links to confusing PDFs, it can cause frustration for even the most adept researchers. Fear not, Google has a thing for this too. Before starting, you must translate your search into the language of the country you’re researching. E.g. 'German fitness market' = 'Deutsche Fitnessmarkt'.

After this, you can take two routes:
1. Go Incognito
2. Use Advanced Search and narrow your search by region

Google Scholar
On the hunt for academic papers? Google Scholar is great at finding expert-fuelled research as well as potential recruits for expert interview requests. Just search for the topic you want to research.

Pat yourselves on your shoulder because you made it through the first session in our ‘How to find stuff on the internet’ series. We hope you are able to come away from this, more informed and confident in how to make the most of the Google search engine.

Tune in for our next issue which will be all about social lurking, things are about to get weird...