How to Search Successfully

Define Your Topic | Identify Main Concepts | Develop a List of Search Terms | Truncation (Wild Card) | Construct Your Search Statements

Step 1: Define Your Topic

Have a very clear idea of your search topic

Write it down: try to summarize your topic in the form of a question
Add comments to indicate such things as "I want to find information written since 1990 only" or "I want to limit my search to English language materials only"

EXAMPLE:

What methods can be used to teach children good hygiene?

Step 2: Identify Main Concepts

Computers do not handle natural language searching very well - they prefer to deal with a search topic one concept or idea at a time
Divide your topic into concepts: concepts should be meaningful "hard" terms - usually only verbs and nouns
Your topic may consist of one concept or more than one concept.

EXAMPLE:

CONCEPT A	CONCEPT B	CONCEPT C
teach	children	hygiene

Step 3: Develop a List of Search Terms

Think of the different ways a writer might express each concept. Consider:
- Synonyms (e.g., poor, poverty, disadvantaged, etc.)
- Alternative spellings (e.g., labor, labour, pediatric, paediatric, etc.)
- Variant endings (e.g., child, children, childish, etc.)
- Acronyms (e.g., UN, SARS, etc)
Some databases have a thesaurus or subject list available to help you develop this list
It is often helpful to arrange the keywords for each concept in a group

EXAMPLE:

CONCEPT A	CONCEPT B	CONCEPT C
teach	children	hygiene
educate	child	hygienic
education	toddler/s	cleanliness
instruct	preschooler/s	handwashing

Truncation (Wild Card)

Used in computer searching, truncation is like a wildcard. The symbol used is often the asterisk *, but may be another character. When this symbol is added to the end of a word root, your search will retrieve all possible endings of that word.

EXAMPLE:

child*: retrieves child, child's, children, etc.

Step 4: Construct Your Search Statement

Boolean operators need to be used to link your search terms together, so the computer system will understand what you are looking for. The most commonly used Boolean operators are AND and OR.

AND

Requires that ALL search terms be present
Use to connect different concepts
i.e., to combine your main ideas together
Use to narrow your search (retrieve fewer results)
Retrieves the records containing ALL terms

EXAMPLE:

If your search statement is: teach* and children and hygiene

Your results would contain ALL of the following terms:

teach*	children	hygiene
(or teaching teaches, etc)

OR	Requires that ANY of the search terms be present Use to connect all your synonyms for each concept i.e., to combine "like" terms Use to broaden your search (retrieve more results) Retrieves the records containing ANY term

EXAMPLE:

If your search statement is: teach* or educat* or instruct*

Your results would contain ANY of the following terms:

teach, teaches, teacher, teaching, instruct, instructs, instruction, instructor, instructing
educate, educates, education, etc.

If you want to construct a more complex search statement, using the and connector as well as the or connector, use parentheses to group concepts.

EXAMPLE:

If your search statement is:
(teach* or educat* or instruct*) and children and hygiene

Your results will contain both of the following terms...

children

hygiene

...as well as one or more of the following terms:

teach, teaches, teacher, teaching, instruct, instructs, instruction, instructor, instructing
educate, educates, education, etc.

Most databases let you restrict a search to such things as items written in a particular language or written within a particular time period, so look around the screen for these options.

Try our Search Strategy worksheet to construct a search for your own topic.

For more information, consult the online help or ask a librarian for assistance.

September 19, 2011
Library Web Team