Five Steps to Successful Searching
Use advanced
or guided search when available.
The advanced or guided search option will provide you with much more flexibility in designing your search. It allows you to select specific fields to search, such as author or title, as well as providing help using Boolean operators or limits.
Use Boolean
operators to connect search terms.
The Boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT can help you combine concepts, as well as helping you to expand or narrow your search.
- AND Narrows
Your Search
Joining search terms with AND looks for results which must include all of your keywords: alcoholism AND schizophrenia
- OR Broadens Your Search
Joining search terms with OR broadens your search and can be used with synonyms: Latino OR Hispanic
- NOT Limits Your Search
Joining search terms with NOT excludes keywords from your search: pets NOT cats
For example, lets say you are looking for articles on the social or historic causes of soccer violence in the United Kingdom. Soccer is known as football outside the United States. United Kingdom could possibly be referred to as Great Britain. Violence might also be expanded to include crime.
Using Boolean Operators, you could construct the following search, which would ensure the most hits. In this example, we are using nesting to group our search with parentheses.
(Soccer OR Football) AND (United Kingdom OR Great Britain) AND (Violence OR Crime)
In this example, we are using nesting to group our search with parentheses. In other databases, you may be able to do this using advanced or guided Search.
Use limits
to focus your search.
Most databases provide an option to limit your search. These limits can include language, type of resource, publication date, and full text only. If you find yourself getting too many hits, or would like to eliminate certain types of records, set your limits and try again.
Use truncation
and wildcards when applicable.
Most databases provide an option to use wildcards or truncation. This will help you search variations of words that may be important for your search.
- wom?n finds woman or women
- philosoph* finds philosopher, philosophers, philosophy...
These symbols can vary from database to database, so check the "Help" or "Search Tips" options in the database you are searching to find the best one for your needs.
Identify
subjects or descriptors for your topic.
Conduct a search using the techniques listed above. If you find an article on the topic you are interested in, look at the subject terms or descriptors that are listed in the record for the item. These terms are standard within the database, and often can help you locate more articles on that topic.
For example, if you are looking for articles on African Americans in Chicago politics and you use "African Americans" as a search term, you may get results. But looking at the subject terms, you may notice that the database uses the term "blacks" as a subject or descriptor term. Changing your search using that as a subject/descriptor may expand the number of search results you get.
Some databases, such as PsycInfo or Medline, will have a thesaurus feature which will point you to the best subject terms based on your keywords. Take advantage of these features when they are available, because they will help you find better results.
Other Suggestions
If you are still having trouble determining what search features are available for the resource you are using, check the Help section of the database. These pages will often provide detailed information about how you can construct your search for optimal results.
In addition, you can feel free to Ask a Librarian for assistance. We can help you identify subject terms/descriptors for your search, suggest search strategies, and provide additional assistance.