Searching the web

Websites can be useful when searching for information to support your studies. However, there are many different types of web content available.

The pages produced by professional bodies, charities, and government organisations, for example, can provide useful sources of grey literature. This is material produced outside of traditional publishing channels, but can be just as important. It includes conference papers, theses and dissertations, reports, newsletters, and discussion papers.

Not all webpages are reliable, and much of the information you find on webpages is often not reviewed or fact-checked in any way, so the quality of online information will vary.

Many websites are not aimed at an academic audience, so whilst information on webpages may be useful to provide you with an overview of a subject, it should not be relied on as authoritative and research-based evidence for your work.

With the rise of generative AI, you are more likely to encounter misinformation. 

Explore this topic further

Social media should not be relied upon when searching for academic sources, but it can be useful in building a network of contacts, and for keeping up to date with developments that you might want to explore further in your studies. 

The resources below contain more information about how fact checking works on social media, and about how social media can be used alongside your studies or research.

Most of the major search engines will allow you to limit your search to specific resource types.  

It is important to be mindful of copyright restrictions when you are including or referencing media you have found online. Some search engines, including Google, provide guidance on image licensing. Having an awareness of resources with a creative commons license is important, as some resources require attribution to be used, or are not licensed to be reused without permission.  

To ensure you are using copyright free images, it can be useful to use specialist platforms for some resources to quickly find the resources you need: 

Academic search engines, such as Google Scholar, focus on searching the web for scholarly information – for example, peer-reviewed journal articles, theses, conference proceedings, books, and research produced by professional organisations.

Academic search engines usually index material from specific publishers with whom they have an agreement, and as such:

• Their overall coverage is not as comprehensive as subject databases
• Their coverage of some subject areas is better than others

One example of an academic search engine is Google Scholar:

• Google Scholar is not transparent about how it sources results, and as such there is limited quality control.
• Your results may include articles which the university does not subscribe to, either in print or electronically.
• From Google Scholar, you can access the full-text of articles that the university subscribes to using library links and clicking on the ViewIt@Nottingham link.