What is your topic?
Tip: it’s helpful to choose a topic that interests you. To browse for topics, try looking through a subject encyclopedia or magazine or journal for ideas.
Your research topic can be stated in question form or as a search statement, e.g. Is there a link between exposure to beauty products and diseases like cancer? Jot your question below. At this stage you’ll want to keep it simple.
Break your information topic down into individual components, listing a keyword or phrase and any synonyms you think might be fruitful, e.g.
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Your concept a: |
cosmetics |
Your concept b: |
disease |
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Your concept a: |
Your concept b: |
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Choose an appropriate database.
Begin by determining what specific field or discipline might study your research question.
Then review the list of databases on this guide or the list of databases by subject.
Note that some databases, such as Academic Search Complete, cover multiple disciplines, and also that searching more than one database might be fruitful. In my example on cosmetics, I might want to search a general database covering many disciplines like Academic Search Complete, and PubMed, which covers Medicine. The database description will give some idea of the disciplines that are covered, the type of publication (newspapers, journals, popular magazines) and the audience (experts, general interest, etc.).
Link your search terms with appropriate connectors.
Both concepts? Use AND Either one or the other? Use OR
E.g. Search statement: cosmetics and (disease or cancer)
Note that if you use AND and OR connectors in the same search statement, you should "corral" your similar terms within parentheses so the computer knows to treat them as equivalent terms.
Also, note that you don't always have to specify AND: it can be implied. You can find out for sure in the Help section of the specific database. We call this an "implied AND," or say that the AND connector is the default.
Try out your search in a database. Evaluate your search results. Ask yourself, do I need more or fewer results?
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Need fewer results? Add an additional search term connecting with AND. More Ways to focus results: Limit to a population like age, gender, animal or human, nursing students, librarians. Limit to a geographic area. Limit by type of document, e.g. Review article, clinical trial, etc. *Limit to full text (you should do this anyway) Limit to major focus of the article (see advanced search options in your database) |
Too few results? Use OR with some synonyms or alternative terms
More ways to increase retrieval:
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Think of synonyms for your search terms. See if your database has a thesaurus or list of vocabulary terms (PsycInfo, Medline and CINAHL all do). In some databases, you can Explode your term: The headings are exploded to retrieve all references indexed to that term as well as all references indexed to any narrower subject terms. Or check the box that says apply related words (EBSCO databases only). |
