6 Ways to Step Up Your Search Skills

Barbara Gray’s official title is chief librarian and associate professor at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York.

But really, she’s the search boss.

Gray showed off her search super powers at a session at last month’s annual conference, ASJA: Always in Fashion, NYC2025, at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.

Search Tips from the Search Boss

Here are some tips shared by Gray during her presentation to improve your results when searching Google or other public databases.

Quote marks are your friends. Use quotation marks to search a multi-word term, such as “stakeholder capital” or “greenhouse gases,” as well as to search proper names. If you’re searching a name and don’t know someone’s middle initial, include an asterisk in its place, such as “Juan * Ramirez.” Use quote marks and “OR” to search for both the scientific or technical term and the common words or jargon that people might use in their place. An example search could be: “renal insufficiency” OR “kidney failure.”

Look beyond simple search results. Don’t overlook Google News or Google Scholar to see what else may have been published about a topic beyond what comes up in simple search results. The same goes for Google Books and Google Images. “People study every topic you can imagine, always search scholarly material,” Gray said.

Use the Tools button to refine your search. Refine search results by using the Tools button found in the top right corner of the results page. Use Tools to narrow results to a specific date or date range or a verbatim phrase. In Tools, use Advanced Search to narrow a search by language, region, site or domain, or where the term appears on a page (such as in a headline or body of an article).

Get a library card. State, local, or university alumni library cards are magic wands that unlock remote access to materials stored in university and other databases that often aren’t available otherwise. With a library card, you can access the WorldCat database, which catalogs audiobooks, maps, musical scores, recordings, and e-books, along with articles and images. If you’re considering an on-site visit to a library with holdings you’ve found online, reach out before you go. “Rare items or collections may be (stored) off site,” Gray said.

Search newspapers. The New York Public Library A-Z Databases site is a gateway to 143 newspaper and magazine databases along with other primary source material, scholarly e-books and journals, reference material, business resources, statistics, maps, and rare books. When searching newspaper archive, Gray suggests using results from searching on specific keywords to further refine your search. “Go broader if you’re not getting anything, or narrower if you’re getting too much,” she said. Readex and ProQuest are other (paid) sources for searching US historical newspapers and periodicals.

Use a people finder app – but only for good. Sites such as Spokeo that charge a fee to confidentially look up facts on individuals can be “freakishly accurate,” Gray said – which is why she admonishes researchers to only use what you find for “for good.” Spokeo lets you search by name, phone number, address or email to find contact information, location history, family and associates, and social media accounts. Free people search sites Gray mentioned include TruePeopleSearch, FamilyTreeNow, Nuwber, That’sThem.com, Whoxy, and US Public Data Search.

More Resources For Better Search Results

The Newmark Journalism School compiled 29 free research guides for reporters that walk writers through various research techniques and tools. Guide topics include cops and crime research, court records, fact checking, FOIA requests, census data, international reporting, and more.

Conference attendees received a copy of Gray’s complete session handout along with handouts for other sessions and a link to a post-conference survey in a March 4 email blast from the ASJA office. If you attended the conference and haven’t filled out the survey, there’s still time! Responses are requested by the end of today, March 19 – fill out the survey here.