Ask yourself three questions:
Brainstorm keywords to use in your search. Pick words that represent each key aspect of your topic (see below for an example).
This process can be challenging. The same idea can be expressed in many ways. To ensure the best results when searching, brainstorm several keywords whenever possible.
To search effectively, find the keywords (which are the main ideas) for your research topic. Why? Most search tools don’t understand natural language (i.e. sentences), so searching with keywords can help you find articles on your topic
Keyword searching is essentially taking your best guess at the terms which will appear in articles that are about your topic. This can be a very effective way of searching. However, you may get a number of irrelevant results because the keywords you chose may appear in irrelevant articles. You also never know if you've found all the article on your topic.
Tip: The next time you're using a library catalogue/database or looking at a book or article, take note of the author defined keywords or keywords and subject headings used then try using those terms in your next search.
Boolean logic is the fancy language databases use to search. Boolean operators connect your keywords together.
The three basic boolean operators are: AND, OR, and NOT.
Use the Boolean operators AND, OR, NOT to make your search more effective and to find more sources on your topic.
Use Boolean modifiers such as phrase searching, truncation, and wildcards to make your search more effective and find more sources on your topic.
Have you tried searching an article database and got too many, or too few sources? In this short tutorial, you will learn tips to improve your search results.
