Getting StartedSearch Strategies
How to construct a search:
- Choose a topic and identify the main concepts
Tip! Concepts associated with your topic are often good search terms.
Example Topic: Massage Therapy
Main Concepts you could choose to focus on: Complementary Therapies, Alternative Medicine, Reflexology, Reflexotherapy, Reiki
- Discover synonyms and related terms
Tips! Use an encyclopedia, thesaurus or other reference tools to find other possible search terms.
Try to find the standard terms used in the field.
Have a number of possible search terms ready. See the keyword searching guide for tips on discovering keywords.
Example: synonyms for massage (as an action, not a discipline): treat, care for, manipulate, knead
- Choose the right database or search engine
Tips! For help choosing a database or search engine, consult the research by topic guides or ask your librarian. Librarians are happy to help you figure out where to look.
Think about what sort of material you would like to find, and use those expectations to shape your research plan.
Use library catalogs to find books and e-books. Library databases are tools to find journal and news articles. Select web pages from academic directories and search engines.
Example: For example, if you're looking for information about something that happened last week, you'll want to look in newspapers and online news sources (like BBC, CNN, or ProQuest Newsstand database). If you're looking for current events in books or e-books, you won't have any luck because recent information hasn't been published in a book yet.
Think of choosing a database like shopping. When you're shopping for shoes, you want to go looking in a shoe store, department store, or mall. If you went to a ice cream store (like Dairy Queen), you probably won't have any luck finding the shoes you want.
- Search Strategies: Subject Searching
Librarians have assigned subject headings to books and articles to help us find all sources about certain topics. Using subject headings will narrow your search.
Tips! Subject searching uses "controlled vocabulary."
Please view the subject searching guide for more information.
Example: If you're searching "global market," you may see that "globalization" is a subject heading. Clicking on "globalization" will lead you to all the resources that are about that topic. Using subject headings is a way to speed up your research.
- Search Strategies: Keyword Searching
Keyword searching is the most common way to search. When you are first starting your research, keyword searching is the best way to begin.
See the following guides for specific keyword searching methods: keyword searching, narrow your search, or broaden your search.
- Evaluate results and broaden or narrow your search
Tips! Did you find the items you need? If not, examine what you did find and adjust your search strategies.
It is normal to go through the search process a few times until you find the perfect results – don’t be discouraged! Try different synonyms for your search terms, experiment with Boolean operators (see the keyword searching guide) to broaden or narrow your search, or try another database or resource.
Example: If you're searching for articles about "partially hydrogenated soybean oil" and you're not getting many results, you may want to consider using a related term, like "transfat." Or you could broaden your search in other ways.
Or if you're searching for articles and getting 20,000 results for potato chip companies, you will want to narrow your search to a specific company or brand. There are other ways to narrow your search, which you could explore.
More:
- Finding full text articles
- Keyword searching
- Subject searching
- Narrow your search
- Broaden your search
- Boolean Operators: AND, OR, NOT
Monday December 29, 2008