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Online research can sometimes be overwhelming, but learning how to do it effectively will help save time and effort.

The following steps explain one method of doing this:

1. decide on the type of research you want to carry out
2. select search words carefully
3. decide on the type of source
4. be thorough
5. evaluate
6. cite

Step one - type of research

Decide if the topic is hard research or soft research.

Hard research refers to objective and scientific research. The credibility of sources will be essential as hard research information may involve proven facts, figures, statistics and measurable evidence.

Soft research refers to subject matter that is opinion-based, cultural and more subjective. The credibility of sources is less important.

Sometimes the topic will involve both hard and soft research. It is important to understand the type of research as this will influence the type of source material.

Step two - search words

Carefully select search words. Generally, between three and five search words are recommended.

Use the three basic Boolean operators of AND, OR and NOT within your search to broaden or narrow results.

AND

Using AND in your search will narrow the results. It will tell the database that all terms searched must be present in the results.

For example, the search words depression AND statistics will contain both words in the results.

This won’t guarantee that the words appear next to each other, only that both words will be present in the results. You could also include more than two words, eg depression AND statistics AND Wales.

OR

Using OR in your search will broaden the results, and can be used to request an alternative search. The results of the search must contain either of the words, eg depression OR anxiety statistics. Most search engines would interpret this as depression OR anxiety AND statistics.

NOT

Using NOT in your search terms will tell certain search engines to exclude words from the search, eg depression NOT America will return results that contain the word depression but it will not show you results that are to do with America.

A search engine like Google however does not recognise the Boolean operator NOT and favours instead a minus sign placed directly in front of the word with no space between the minus sign and the word that follows it, eg depression –America.

Brackets

Boolean operators can also be used together by using brackets. A database will search the words or terms that are in brackets first, and then search for the words that are not bracketed next, eg (depression OR anxiety) AND statistics. Results for this search will include information on depression and statistics/anxiety and statistics/statistics and depression, but it will not return results on depression and anxiety if the word statistics is not mentioned.

Quotation marks

If you want to search for a full phrase, enclose it in double quotation marks, eg “depression statistics Wales”. However, this method is not one of the Boolean operators.

Step three - type of source

Select credible sources if the topic is hard research.

Hard research

Hard research sources can include:

• government sources which will have .gov in the title
• National Health Service sources which will have .nhs.uk in the title
• non-profit organisation sources which will have .org.uk in the title
• commercial sources which will have .co.uk or .com in the title
• websites that include .ac usually belong to colleges and universities
• academic journals which can be accessed using search engines such as Google Scholar

Wikipedia can be a useful starting place, but the content can be written and edited by anyone so it could be inaccurate, biased or outdated. The reference section at the bottom of a Wikipedia page may take you to the original source, and original or primary sources are likely to be most reliable.

Soft research

Soft research sources can include:

• blogs
• forums and discussion sites
• product review sites

Step four - be thorough

Look at the results on several pages and not just the first one. The most popular sites tend to appear on the first page. It is still worth looking at other pages as the information required may be valid – but just not as popular.

Step five - evaluate

Evaluate webpages. Apply credibility criteria to decide whether the information is going to be worth using.

Step six - cite

Cite or quote sources by creating a bibliography. This usually involves stating:

• author of the web article (or webpage)
• title
• year
• name of the site
• site’s web address
• date the article/page was accessed

Example

McGrath, M. (2016). CO2 levels mark 'new era' in the world's changing climate. ����tv News, [online]. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-37729033 [Accessed: 24 Oct. 2016].