 There's an absolutely ridiculous amount of information out there in the world with more and more being created, published, and shared every single day in a huge variety of formats. Sure, online searching is easier than ever, but you're probably just scratching the surface when you do a search. So how can you be more efficiently and effectively searching for information to find better resources for your academic research and daily life? First of all, you've probably been told that using Google when searching for information isn't enough, but is that really true? Short answer? Sure. But why? We can simplify a really complex idea by thinking about information like a product in a store, like clothing or food. If you want to buy groceries, you go to the store. But if you want to access information, where do you go? Well, Google's an obvious choice, but just like the stores, there's several places to choose from based on what you need and sometimes what's convenient. Think of Google as a huge market that sells a little bit of everything. You could go and buy some snacks, video games, some tires, a garden hose, sweatpants and shampoo and never have to leave a store. The only problem is that it's huge and it takes a lot of effort to find what you actually want. This is great if your needs are pretty broad, but if you need specific items for a detailed task like renovating a kitchen, you'll need to go to a store that specializes in home improvement. They'll have things that you just might not find at the market, like tiles, countertops, lighting and more. Think of this store as being like a database that you used to find high quality, focused academic articles on a specific discipline like history or psychology. Like shopping in stores, when you search for information in different places, there's some overlap in the stuff that you have access to, but there will always be unique information that you can only find in specialty databases. So think about your information needs and the scope of your search. What do you need to answer and what types of sources and tools would be appropriate? If you need scholarly information, use a database or Google Scholar. If you're exploring a topic for the very first time, a Google search is a great place to start to get from general information. But what do I mean by good search? Think of a search as a dialogue you have with a search engine like Google or database. The words that you use help determine the responses that you get, just like in a real life conversation. For example, we might be having a discussion and I use the term climate change and you use the term global warming. We may be talking about basically the same idea in our heads, but these terms have different scientific, social, political, and economic meanings attached and might reflect a bias you're not even aware of. Now think about the terms you use to search. You have to adjust these terms, maybe even more than once, to make sure you're getting information that represents different viewpoints on an issue. You should never do just one search with your academic research. Your first set of results won't be perfect, but you can improve them by developing a good research question that helps you build an experiment with your search terms. You can go from millions of results to thousands, even hundreds, if you develop a set of precise terms that help you address the question you hope to answer. Remember, you can search for information in a variety of places. Just think about what you need and consider the best set of options of where to find it. And don't be afraid to explore a little bit, trying new terms and multiple searches in order to build the best set of results. Try using these strategies to save time and search smarter. And that's how you form your thinking.