SEARCH TIPS
There are ways to make a Google Search more effective, as well as, alternate search engines you may not have come across before. It is important for you to have good research to present to backup the changes in the law you are suggesting. Hopefully this will make your searches better and more efficient. Also, don't always look at just the first page that comes up. Be sure to look at pages after that. You may find some great information on Page 5 of the search, but it just wasn't optimized for SEO well. This is especially true now that pages not "optimized for mobile" will appear lower than those that are optimized.
Also, be sure to check out other search engines:
DuckDuckGo - https://www.DuckDuckGo.com is a search engine that doesn't do user tracking. It will find different searches from Google since its algorithm is different.
StartPage - https://www.startpage.com is Google without the user tracking. It is Netherlands based and they remove the tracking function part of the Google search.
Ecosia - https://www.ecosia.org/ When you use this search engine, the money made from it goes to planting trees worldwide. They don't sell your data and the searches you make are encrypted.
Dogpile - https://www.dogpile.com/ is a combination of Google, Yahoo and Bing. It then sorts the results from all of them combined.
Kiddle - https://www.kiddle.co/ is owned by Google and is a Google search, but with filters to make it friendly for children. It has encyclopedia articles. It is designed to not collect personal information.
Wolfram Alpha - https://www.wolframalpha.com/ looks for expert answers in math, history, engineering, finance and more. It is part algorithm and part AI.
Qwant - https://www.qwant.com/?l=en is based in Paris, which means it follows European rules that will not track your location. Because of this, be sure to enter a location in the search if you are looking for something in a particular locale.It's underlying search engine is based on BING.
Swisscows - https://swisscows.com/ is based in the Swiss Alps. It has child safety filters in place and no tracking.
Mozilla Firefox (Browser) - https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/ is an open source browser that blocks third party cookies.
Tor Browser - https://www.torproject.org is an encrypted browser. It uses a "noscript" feature to block ads and auto loading videos. While secure, it may cause sites to not load the same way as it disables features and tracking.
In our location, our Public Library has a paid subscription to WestLaw, which allows the average person to use a search engine lawyers and legislators use to read actual laws and abstracts. Ask your reference librarian about additional resources that may be available to you. If you have a college or law school in your area, these are also great resources.
See below for specific Google Tips...
Also, be sure to check out other search engines:
DuckDuckGo - https://www.DuckDuckGo.com is a search engine that doesn't do user tracking. It will find different searches from Google since its algorithm is different.
StartPage - https://www.startpage.com is Google without the user tracking. It is Netherlands based and they remove the tracking function part of the Google search.
Ecosia - https://www.ecosia.org/ When you use this search engine, the money made from it goes to planting trees worldwide. They don't sell your data and the searches you make are encrypted.
Dogpile - https://www.dogpile.com/ is a combination of Google, Yahoo and Bing. It then sorts the results from all of them combined.
Kiddle - https://www.kiddle.co/ is owned by Google and is a Google search, but with filters to make it friendly for children. It has encyclopedia articles. It is designed to not collect personal information.
Wolfram Alpha - https://www.wolframalpha.com/ looks for expert answers in math, history, engineering, finance and more. It is part algorithm and part AI.
Qwant - https://www.qwant.com/?l=en is based in Paris, which means it follows European rules that will not track your location. Because of this, be sure to enter a location in the search if you are looking for something in a particular locale.It's underlying search engine is based on BING.
Swisscows - https://swisscows.com/ is based in the Swiss Alps. It has child safety filters in place and no tracking.
Mozilla Firefox (Browser) - https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/ is an open source browser that blocks third party cookies.
Tor Browser - https://www.torproject.org is an encrypted browser. It uses a "noscript" feature to block ads and auto loading videos. While secure, it may cause sites to not load the same way as it disables features and tracking.
In our location, our Public Library has a paid subscription to WestLaw, which allows the average person to use a search engine lawyers and legislators use to read actual laws and abstracts. Ask your reference librarian about additional resources that may be available to you. If you have a college or law school in your area, these are also great resources.
See below for specific Google Tips...
Search Tips from TED by Danielle Thomson: https://blog.TED.com/10-research-tips-for-finding-answers-that-elude-you/
As a top level researcher she has tips on how to find almost any kind of data or answer a question.
Google Search Tips:
Google Search Tips:
Government Site Searching - If you want to only search government pages to find something, in the Google box type
keyword site:.gov Example if you are searching about apiary (government info on bees), you would type apiary site:.gov so it will only search .gov sites on the topic of "apiary". Note: For accurate searches be sure you use the legal terminology. Example we may be thinking "car" or "auto" but in the law they say "motor vehicle". Find out the term the law uses.
In that case it would be "motor vehicle" site:.gov (Put " around the phrase if there is more than one word.)
If you are searching for a certain type of document like a .pdf or .doc, photos or even a powerpoint presentation, you can further define the search.
Examples:
site:.gov filetype:doc "Keyword" for .doc or .docx for Word Documents
site:.gov filetype:.pdf "Keyword" for Adobe PDFs
site:.gov filetype:pptx "Keyword" for Powerpoints
site:.gov filetype:.jpg "Keyword" for .jpg pictures
site:.gov filetype:.xls "Keyword" for spreadsheets
Define - If you need to know the meaning of a term. In the Google box type define:Word The word you type after the colon will then search for the definition of that word the way a dictionary does. This can be very helpful when you come across legal or terms you find in your research.
Phrase Search - When you need to find a quote or an exact phrase, put it in quotation marks.
Example: "Pesticide Drift"
Keyword Search - This will search websites that desinate the keyword you specify. Enter a ~ before the keyword you are searching on.
Example: ~polystyrene ~regulations
Multiple Variables - You can filter your searches with multiple variables by using the OR operand. The OR must be capitalized. This is also true for the AND operand.
Example: bees OR butterflies
Exclude Certain Words - You may be getting search results that include a totally different area you are not interested in. Type what you want to search and then put a space minus sign and the term you want to exclude.
Example: styrofoam chemical composition -polystyrene Searching this way will eliminate the chemical polystyrene and bring up all other chemicals used.
Finding a Range - City Population 10,000...25,000 Putting the ... inbetween will bring up results between the two numbers. This can be helpful when you are trying to find similar comparisons. You can also do this with $ signs.
Search within a Site - Type the word site followed by a colon, url of the site and then what you want to find. The following example will find demgraphic information for New York City.
Example: site:demographia.com New York, NY
Search within a Certain Time Period - Click on Tools and then choose "Any time" to specify a date range.
Fill in the Blanks - The * is called a wildcard variable. You place the * where you want to see variations such as types of pesticides or chemicals.
Example: Respiratory distress for * chemical drift
Search by File Type - Maybe you need to find a .PDF or .PPT or .GIF This will narrow the search to a specific file type.
Example: Pesticide Presentation filetype:PPT will give Powerpoint presentations on Pesticides.
Setting a Timer - Working on these legal files takes a lot of time. You may want to tell Google to set a timer for you to take a break.
Example: Set Timer for 30 minutes
Solve a Math Equation - The Google search box is also a calculator.
Example: (60 * 4) / 5 = will bring up a calculator with the formula completed and an answer, which in this case is 48.
Find an Image - You may need to find photo examples of your problem or issue. On the Google home screen, click on "Images" and then enter type .gif South Bend, Indiana and it will bring up images for South Bend, Indiana. It can also be done for .gif and other photo formats.
Example: Click on the "Images" button, then enter type .jpg South Bend, Indiana or type .jpg pesticides bees
Title Search - Start by typing intitle: and then the words you want to find in the title.
Example: intitle:legal research It will then give you catagories such as books, online, computer, clip art, etc.
More tips directly from Google: https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2466433?hl=en and
https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/134479?hl=en
If you are working with one of your Legislators, they may have access to this to aid in your research.
National Conference of State Legislatures https://www.ncsl.org/research.aspx It's only available to Legislators, but they may be able to assist you.
Government Site Searching - If you want to only search government pages to find something, in the Google box type
keyword site:.gov Example if you are searching about apiary (government info on bees), you would type apiary site:.gov so it will only search .gov sites on the topic of "apiary". Note: For accurate searches be sure you use the legal terminology. Example we may be thinking "car" or "auto" but in the law they say "motor vehicle". Find out the term the law uses.
In that case it would be "motor vehicle" site:.gov (Put " around the phrase if there is more than one word.)
If you are searching for a certain type of document like a .pdf or .doc, photos or even a powerpoint presentation, you can further define the search.
Examples:
site:.gov filetype:doc "Keyword" for .doc or .docx for Word Documents
site:.gov filetype:.pdf "Keyword" for Adobe PDFs
site:.gov filetype:pptx "Keyword" for Powerpoints
site:.gov filetype:.jpg "Keyword" for .jpg pictures
site:.gov filetype:.xls "Keyword" for spreadsheets
Define - If you need to know the meaning of a term. In the Google box type define:Word The word you type after the colon will then search for the definition of that word the way a dictionary does. This can be very helpful when you come across legal or terms you find in your research.
Phrase Search - When you need to find a quote or an exact phrase, put it in quotation marks.
Example: "Pesticide Drift"
Keyword Search - This will search websites that desinate the keyword you specify. Enter a ~ before the keyword you are searching on.
Example: ~polystyrene ~regulations
Multiple Variables - You can filter your searches with multiple variables by using the OR operand. The OR must be capitalized. This is also true for the AND operand.
Example: bees OR butterflies
Exclude Certain Words - You may be getting search results that include a totally different area you are not interested in. Type what you want to search and then put a space minus sign and the term you want to exclude.
Example: styrofoam chemical composition -polystyrene Searching this way will eliminate the chemical polystyrene and bring up all other chemicals used.
Finding a Range - City Population 10,000...25,000 Putting the ... inbetween will bring up results between the two numbers. This can be helpful when you are trying to find similar comparisons. You can also do this with $ signs.
Search within a Site - Type the word site followed by a colon, url of the site and then what you want to find. The following example will find demgraphic information for New York City.
Example: site:demographia.com New York, NY
Search within a Certain Time Period - Click on Tools and then choose "Any time" to specify a date range.
Fill in the Blanks - The * is called a wildcard variable. You place the * where you want to see variations such as types of pesticides or chemicals.
Example: Respiratory distress for * chemical drift
Search by File Type - Maybe you need to find a .PDF or .PPT or .GIF This will narrow the search to a specific file type.
Example: Pesticide Presentation filetype:PPT will give Powerpoint presentations on Pesticides.
Setting a Timer - Working on these legal files takes a lot of time. You may want to tell Google to set a timer for you to take a break.
Example: Set Timer for 30 minutes
Solve a Math Equation - The Google search box is also a calculator.
Example: (60 * 4) / 5 = will bring up a calculator with the formula completed and an answer, which in this case is 48.
Find an Image - You may need to find photo examples of your problem or issue. On the Google home screen, click on "Images" and then enter type .gif South Bend, Indiana and it will bring up images for South Bend, Indiana. It can also be done for .gif and other photo formats.
Example: Click on the "Images" button, then enter type .jpg South Bend, Indiana or type .jpg pesticides bees
Title Search - Start by typing intitle: and then the words you want to find in the title.
Example: intitle:legal research It will then give you catagories such as books, online, computer, clip art, etc.
More tips directly from Google: https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2466433?hl=en and
https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/134479?hl=en
If you are working with one of your Legislators, they may have access to this to aid in your research.
National Conference of State Legislatures https://www.ncsl.org/research.aspx It's only available to Legislators, but they may be able to assist you.
Finding Current Government Information:
Sunlight Foundation - https://sunlightfoundation.com/
The Sunlight Foundation is a national, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that uses technology, open data, policy analysis and journalism to make our government and politics more accountable and transparent to all. Our vision is for technology to enable more complete, equitable and effective democratic participation. Our overarching goal is to achieve changes in the law to require real-time, online transparency for all government information. And, while our work began in 2006 with only a focus on the U.S. Congress, our open government work now takes place at the local, state, federal and international levels.
We believe that information is power, or, to put it more finely, disproportionate access to information is power. We are committed to improving access to government information by making it available to the public, online.
We approach our work in a number of ways. We work with thousands of software developers, local transparency activists, bloggers, on and off-line active citizens and journalists, involving them in distributed research projects, hackathons and training. Sunlight’s policy team pushes for improved transparency policy through NGO efforts like OpeningParliament.org, and by working directly with governments at all levels. Our writers cover political influence and government transparency using data journalism techniques.
These efforts have produced real results. Over the past decade, we served more than 4.2 billion API calls (and counting), indicating how much the data we liberated was needed. Our reporting is frequently cited by the world’s preeminent journalists. Our research has led to congressional hearings, and our tools have stripped problematic measures from bills. We won a major victorywhen, at our urging, the federal government agreed to begin the process of releasing all datasets held by federal agencies. We were part of a coalition that passed historic reforms to the Freedom of Information Act, the DATA Act, fundamentally changing how the public is informed about federal spending, and now is pushing for the passage of the OPEN Government Data Act.
The Sunlight Foundation is a national, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that uses technology, open data, policy analysis and journalism to make our government and politics more accountable and transparent to all. Our vision is for technology to enable more complete, equitable and effective democratic participation. Our overarching goal is to achieve changes in the law to require real-time, online transparency for all government information. And, while our work began in 2006 with only a focus on the U.S. Congress, our open government work now takes place at the local, state, federal and international levels.
We believe that information is power, or, to put it more finely, disproportionate access to information is power. We are committed to improving access to government information by making it available to the public, online.
We approach our work in a number of ways. We work with thousands of software developers, local transparency activists, bloggers, on and off-line active citizens and journalists, involving them in distributed research projects, hackathons and training. Sunlight’s policy team pushes for improved transparency policy through NGO efforts like OpeningParliament.org, and by working directly with governments at all levels. Our writers cover political influence and government transparency using data journalism techniques.
These efforts have produced real results. Over the past decade, we served more than 4.2 billion API calls (and counting), indicating how much the data we liberated was needed. Our reporting is frequently cited by the world’s preeminent journalists. Our research has led to congressional hearings, and our tools have stripped problematic measures from bills. We won a major victorywhen, at our urging, the federal government agreed to begin the process of releasing all datasets held by federal agencies. We were part of a coalition that passed historic reforms to the Freedom of Information Act, the DATA Act, fundamentally changing how the public is informed about federal spending, and now is pushing for the passage of the OPEN Government Data Act.
Tracking Legislation in Progress:
LegiScan - https://legiscan.com/
LegiScan launched to support the release of the national LegiScan data service, providing the nation's first impartial real-time legislative tracking service designed for both public citizens and government affairs professionals across all sectors in organizations large and small. Utilizing the LegiScan API, having over 10 years of development maturity, allows us to provide monitoring of every bill in the 50 states and Congress. Giving our users and clients a central and uniform interface with the ability to easily track a wide array of legislative information. Paired with one of the country's most powerful national full bill text legislative search engines.
We instill individuals with the information to become more engaged and aware of the happenings of the legislation that affect their daily lives. An informed electorate is an essential part of a democracy to make decisions on how citizens choose to be represented with our tools to follow and research the legislative process.
We empower organizations with the ability to manage their own government relation clients and issue areas for whose needs they know best. Saving time and resources assimilating legislative data in a manner that enhances analysis and communications with legislative reports to staff, clients, members and those who matter most.
LegiScan launched to support the release of the national LegiScan data service, providing the nation's first impartial real-time legislative tracking service designed for both public citizens and government affairs professionals across all sectors in organizations large and small. Utilizing the LegiScan API, having over 10 years of development maturity, allows us to provide monitoring of every bill in the 50 states and Congress. Giving our users and clients a central and uniform interface with the ability to easily track a wide array of legislative information. Paired with one of the country's most powerful national full bill text legislative search engines.
We instill individuals with the information to become more engaged and aware of the happenings of the legislation that affect their daily lives. An informed electorate is an essential part of a democracy to make decisions on how citizens choose to be represented with our tools to follow and research the legislative process.
We empower organizations with the ability to manage their own government relation clients and issue areas for whose needs they know best. Saving time and resources assimilating legislative data in a manner that enhances analysis and communications with legislative reports to staff, clients, members and those who matter most.
Researching Current Federal Laws and Ones in Process:
Congress.gov - https://www.congress.gov/
Congress.gov is the official website for U.S. federal legislative information. The site provides access to accurate, timely, and complete legislative information for Members of Congress, legislative agencies, and the public. It is presented by the Library of Congress (LOC) using data from the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Office of the Secretary of the Senate, the Government Publishing Office, Congressional Budget Office, and the LOC's Congressional Research Service.
Congress.gov is usually updated the morning after a session adjourns. ConsultCoverage Dates for Legislative Information for the specific update schedules and start date for each collection.
Congress.gov supersedes the THOMAS system which was retired on July 5, 2016. Congress.gov was released in beta in September 2012. The THOMAS URL was redirected to Congress.gov in 2013. The beta label was removed in 2014.
The scope of data collections and system functionality have continued to expand since THOMAS was launched in January 1995, when the 104th Congress convened. THOMAS was produced after Congressional leadership directed the Library of Congress to make federal legislative information freely available to the public.
Congressional documents from the first 100 years of the U.S. Congress (1774-1875) can be accessed through A Century of Lawmaking.
Congress.gov is the official website for U.S. federal legislative information. The site provides access to accurate, timely, and complete legislative information for Members of Congress, legislative agencies, and the public. It is presented by the Library of Congress (LOC) using data from the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Office of the Secretary of the Senate, the Government Publishing Office, Congressional Budget Office, and the LOC's Congressional Research Service.
Congress.gov is usually updated the morning after a session adjourns. ConsultCoverage Dates for Legislative Information for the specific update schedules and start date for each collection.
Congress.gov supersedes the THOMAS system which was retired on July 5, 2016. Congress.gov was released in beta in September 2012. The THOMAS URL was redirected to Congress.gov in 2013. The beta label was removed in 2014.
The scope of data collections and system functionality have continued to expand since THOMAS was launched in January 1995, when the 104th Congress convened. THOMAS was produced after Congressional leadership directed the Library of Congress to make federal legislative information freely available to the public.
Congressional documents from the first 100 years of the U.S. Congress (1774-1875) can be accessed through A Century of Lawmaking.