Follow the five steps below to plan your search. It's important to consider your search terms and how they will be combined before you start using a library database. This will ensure your search retrieves enough relevant articles for your assignment.
Good searching starts with strong keywords.
Underline key nouns from your research topic or question. These are usually people or populations, places, time periods, and ideas or issues.
Example: How did the Mississippian culture use trade networks?
Brainstorm alternatives (synonyms, different spellings, or related terms) for your key concepts.
Concept 1: Mississippian Culture
Cahokia
Etowah
Concept 2: trade
networks
exchange
commerce
In order to get more focused results, use Boolean operators (and, or) as well as the wildcard* to combine key concepts.
Example: ("Mississippian culture" OR Cahokia OR Etowah) AND (trade OR networks OR exchange OR commerce)
The following are some limits or filters you may want to apply to your search:
Searching is trial and error. If you don't like your results, change your keywords.
Too few articles? Try...
Too many articles? Try...
*Adapted from Kathryn Barrett's ANTA01 Library Research Guide
To read the articles or access the full-text PDFs of resources in your results list, look for a full-text or download link in the database. For example, in Anthropology Plus, click on HTML Full Text or Linked Full Text.
If that isn't available for an article you're interested in, click on the Get it! UTL button - this will check for full-text access to the article in all of the databases and collections that the U of T Libraries is a subscriber. If we have access to the article, you'll be directed to it automatically.
When searching library databases it helps to understand what it contains and how searching works. Are you searching the full text? Are you only searching the bibliographic information? The answer to this question will determine your search strategies.
Some library databases (e.g. Anthropology Plus) provide bibliographic information (i.e. article title, journal title, author/s, and publication information) and subject terms. If searching a bibliographic database like Anthropology Plus, note that you are not searching the full text.
Some databases (e.g., JSTOR, AnthroSource) allow for full-text searching, but this option includes results where a search term appears only once in dozens or more pages.
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