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IDH1931 Research Guide

Guide for the ID1931 Course.
Search Strategies

Break your research topic/question into keywords. (Tip: many databases use specific terms to label documents. Use the "official" database terms for best results. Try the thesaurus or use subject headings)

Boolean Operators

Use AND when you want to include all of two or more terms together in the same search – use with independent concepts. AND will limit your results to each additional term.

Database Features

In some databases, you can create a free account to save citations, searches, or research for later review.

Determine your conditions (such as publication yeardocument type or Peer Reviewed) and apply them to your search as limits or filters.

You can often e-mail citations or the full-text to yourself or a colleague.

Use NOT when you want to exclude a term from your search. NOT will limit your results and is useful to avoid retrieving irrelevant items, but use NOT with caution! By excluding an item that briefly mentions the unwanted term, you might be excluding an otherwise useful resource.

Use quotation marks (“ ”) around phrases to keep words together. Use this for an exact quote, phrase or order of the search term. exp. "latin america"

You can use as many Boolean operators as you like in a search phrase, but include related concepts in parentheses to keep the phrase organized (this is called nesting). For example: (Dog OR Canine) AND (Bark NOT Tree)

Use asterisks (*) to “fill-in-the-blank” at the end of a word (this is called truncation). The asterisk will be replaced by any applicable letters. (You can use asterisks as a shortcut for OR-ing words that have identical roots.) exp. paint* will search for paint, painting, painters, painterly, etc.

"cite" Use the built-in citation generators or export a citation directly into RefWorks.

Use OR when you want to include any of two or more terms in a search – use with related concepts. OR will expand your results with each additional term.

Use parentheses with your terms and Boolean operators to build your search phrase. exp. (cat OR kitten) AND (wild OR feral OR homeless)

All databases have the same or similar functions: save, cite, email, print, peer-review, & export. Those functions just may be in a different spot on the result page depending on the database.

  • Start off with getting a general understanding of your topic by collecting background information through things like encyclopedias, basic Internet searching, news, etc.
  • Build on that basic information by researching your topic across other formats and resources like books, periodicals, databases, etc.
  • As you continue to search narrow down our topic to make it more manageable and specific, use the tools built-in to the databases and other resources to help guide you, such as subject headings, tags, related searches, etc.
  • Ask for help!