Google is a powerful tool but can quickly leave you feeling inundated in results—many of which won’t be useful to you at all.

Next time you use Google for research, try these hacks to get a smaller and more relevant batch of results. 

Similarly, you can ask Google to limit your search to a particular site.  This can be useful because not all websites have sophisticated search functions of their own.

For instance, if you limit to site:un.org you would only search the United Nations website.

Here are some possible searches for immigration-related topics:

“displaced peoples” site:un.org

immigration site:un.org

refugees site:un.org

“refugee resettlement” site:un.org

[search terms] site:.edu

Searches only university-hosted websites. 

[search terms] site:.gov

Searches only government-hosted websites. You can even go further, if you know the domain of a particular local or state government entity. For example, if you're doing research on how socioeconomic inequality influences educational options in Connecticut, you might try doing these searches:

poverty AND education site:ct.gov

"charter schools" AND poverty site:ct.gov