WRIT 112 - Fall 2019 - Mendoza: Search Strategies

One way to figure out what keywords you can use is to create a Concept Map. 

Step 1: Write the topic for your paper in the box at the top of the Concept Map.

Underline the keywords or keyword phrases for your topic. These are the main ideas for your topic and they can be single words or phrases. They are usually nouns.

Step 2: Write your keywords in the three boxes in the middle of the page, putting each word in a separate box.

For each of your keywords, add some alternative keywords in the box. The alternative keywords will be synonyms, or other words that may be used to describe aspects of your topic.

When you search by keyword:

• you are searching for words and phrases that can be found anywhere in the text of the item record and/or article.
• you are not searching for commonly used words parts of speech. Examples include articles, pronouns, and prepositions. Databases do not index commonly used words, which are called stop words. Examples of stop words in databases are: a, an,about, after, all, also, and, any, are, as, at, based, because, and many more.

Searching by keyword can be a flexible way to find a large number of results. You can use keyword searching as a way to find targeted results: slang, jargon, and new terms work well in keyword searches.

When you search by subject:

you are using a term from a pre-defined controlled vocabulary determined by that database. Many databases feature a subject-specific thesaurus of subject terms that relate back to the contents in that database. You will only receive articles that were assigned the subject heading you searched with. For this reason, articles found via subject heading searches can be very reliable. The subject will appear in the record item's subject heading or descriptor field.

Searching by subject can be a very specific way to find targeted results within a specific discipline or research area. This can be very beneficial to your research; however, searching by subject only works if you know which subject terms to search with.

You can begin a search with keywords and discover subject terms as you find materials to alter your search strategy as you proceed with your research. Subject terms can be combined with keywords to make your search more specific. When using them, make sure the dropdown menu next to the search box says "Subject", "SU", "Subject Heading" or something similar (each database will vary a little).​

Databases and catalogs will only show results for exactly what you ask for, unlike Google which guesses based off what everyone else is searching. To make your searches more accurate, you can use tools like BOOLEAN operators and modifiers to create more specific and complex searches. 

I would recommend trying the following progression of searches in ProQuest (Combined) or EBSCO (Combined) to see the increasing and decreasing of results based off the operators and modifiers. 

Operators:The use of AND, OR, or NOT to broaden or narrow your search.

AND - Databases and catalogs will often use AND as a standard in between any group of words you type into the search. 

• Narrows your search. The more words you add with AND, the less results you get as it is telling the databases/catalog that ALL words you type must be present within the resource. 
• Example: art AND innovation AND censorship

OR - Connects similar concepts.

• Broadens your search. Telling the database/catalog that you want ANY of the words to appear in your search results. 
• Example: (art OR innovation) AND censorship 

NOT - Excludes words from your search.

• Narrows your search. Tells the database/catalog to not return any results that use the words you've identified. 
• Example: (art OR innovation) AND censorship NOT dance

Modifiers: The use of an asterisk *, parenthesis (), and quotation marks "", to broaden or narrow your searches. 

Asterisk * - attaches to the stem of a word and searches for any word includes that stem, or the letters before the asterisk. 

• Broadens your search. Tells the database to consider all words with the same stem, or beginning, of a word. 
• Example: (art OR innovation) AND censor* NOT dance
  • The * after censor means the database will show censor, censors, censored, censorship, etc. 

Parenthesis () - Used to encapsulate OR statements.

• If you want results that return one word out of a group of two or more, you put them between parentheses to ensure that only one of the search terms is returned.
• Example: (art OR innovation) AND censor* NOT (dance OR performance)

Quotation marks " " - return exactly what you typed inside the quotation marks.

• Narrows your search. The database will only return exactly what is typed between the quotation marks. For example "art" will only return "art" as a singular form and you will not get results that only use the plural form "arts."
• Example: (art OR innovation) AND censor* AND "United States" NOT (dance OR performance)