Your strategy to contextualize your topic will necessarily vary, but some general paths to investigate might include:
For answers to general questions about research, see "Library FAQs" and for more help, email me to meet about your project.
Advanced Google searching can turn up a wealth of otherwise "hidden" documents. Start regularly using just a few extra operators in Google and you'll never look back.
Operator | What It Does |
~ (tilda) | searches for synonyms |
inurl:gov; inurl:org; inurl:edu | searches only these domains |
filetype:pdf; filetype:xls; filetype:ppt | searches for only these types of documents |
date..date (2008..2009) | searches for documents relevant to those years |
site:carleton.edu | searches for documents only at Carleton's domain |
Example:
~hunger "twin cities" ~suburban inurl:org filetype:pdf 2005..2009