Finding Government Documents on the Web
Many of the reports and documents are openly available on federal and state government websites, most of which are on a .gov Internet domain (as opposed to .com or .org domains). If you limit your search results to only websites that are from .gov domains, you increase your chances of locating federal and state government documents. Adding words like statistics, population, data, report, or a specific year may also help you locate specific types of information. In any Web search engine, enter the word site followed by a colon and gov along with your search terms to limit your results to only government websites (e.g. Vermont mortality rates site:gov).
Not all state government websites are on a .gov Internet domain (e.g. The Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife is a .com). Another search strategy is to use the name of a state you are researching and words like agency, bureau, or department along with words like health, environment, or crime to help you identify the office that provides oversight in that area (e.g. Vermont agency health) and go to that agency or department website to conduct your search for data or statistics.
