Now that you have some experience searching the catalog and EBSCO databases, let's take a look at some strategies that will improve your searches and help you find useful books and articles. See the boxes below to learn more about keyword searching, Boolean searching, and using subject headings to focus your search. You'll also find a downloadable worksheet for deriving keywords from your topic and brainstorming for synonyms.
Brainstorm for keywords
Note: Click the image to the left to go to the live thesaurus.com page for "success." You can click on any of the words for more synonyms. |
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Find subject headings in the online catalog:
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Find subject headings in EBSCO databases:
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Use advanced search:
Using Boolean operators (AND, OR, and NOT) with your keywords will help you narrow or expand your results.
The highlighted middle section represents the use of AND. Searching for poverty AND addiction will give you results with both words present. Therefore, your results are fewer.
Using OR between similar keywords will give you results that include both words. Therefore, your results are greater. A search for teenagers OR adolescents will retrieve either or both terms.
The NOT operator gives you results from only one of your words. Therefore, your results are fewer. Searching for addiction NOT alcohol will eliminate alcohol from the results.
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Online Research: Tips for Effective Search Strategies
Video by Sarah Clark
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