A. Start with an overview of database searching vs search engine searching (overlaps with other skill sets and covered by Show Me: Surfing or Researching and the guide to library research.) Note that Google is a fine and appropriate tool to use to locate pet sitters in your area, but for scholarly research the library's subscription databases are much more appropriate, powerful, and authoritative. In the end, using these tools will save you time and energy over trying to use Google for scholarly research. This module will focus on the tools and skills you will need for scholarly research.

L.O. flash demonstration showing a Google or Google Scholar search vs a database search for a research topic, comparing and contrasting the number, quality, and authority of results.

Note much of the content that follows is contained in Show Me: How do I search

B. Keywords

1. keep it simple to start: use two broad words combined with "and" (example: health and chocolate)
Note that most databases do not automatically "and" keywords together, so remember to combine keywords with the word "and" if you were hoping to search for both terms.

2. phrase
Again this will very by database, but if you are hoping to search for a specific phrase, like climate change, it is a good idea to specify this as a phrase when you are developing your search. Quotation marks ("climate change") or parenthesis (climate change) are common methods of entering a phrase as a search item in a database.

L.O. flash animation showing the difference in results returned in one of our databases between a search constructed as a phrase and one constructed without a phrase.

3. wildcard/truncation
Truncation refers to shortening a word or eliminating some characters from a longer term to pick up variations on a word (Bopp and Smith, 103). This will very by database, but the asterisk (*) is a very common truncation symbol. This is a good strategy to use when trying to cast the broadest net for your search. Truncation can take place to the left, right, or middle of the core characters of a word.

L.O. flash demonstration showing a truncation search vs a not truncated search, highlighting the larger number of search results with the truncation search (Example of right truncation: comput* will pick up all search results for computer, computers, computing, and computation. Example of middle truncation: behavi*r will pick up all search results for behavior and behaviour. Possibly use Web of Science for this demo)

4. nesting/grouping
Nesting is a type of searching that uses parentheses to define the sequence of a search in a database.  In the example, ((sediment or flow) and control) not erosion, the database will first search for the keyword sediment and keyword control and combine it with all results containing keywords flow and control. The database will then remove all results from this set that have the keyword erosion in them.

L.O. flash animation showing search results using different parentheses.

C. Boolean Operators

'"and is grand but or gives you more!"

1. and: Include an item in the search results if it meets condition A and B (more restrictive than "or").

2. or: Include an item in the search results if it meets condition A or B (less restrictive than "and").

3. not: Include an item in the search results only if it meets condition A and NOT B (more restrictive than "and" and "or").

L.O. flash demonstration showing the traditional Venn diagram of overlapping circles to highlight what is contained in an "and "set, an "or" set, and a" not" set of search results.

D. Limiting or expanding a search

1. most databases allow you to search for keywords in all fields, just the title, just the abstract, just the author, etc.

L.O. screen shot showing search field options in one of our databases.

2. most databases also allow you to limit to document type (review articles, for example), year(s) of publication, author, language, full text articles only, etc.)

L.O. screen shot showing further limiting options in one of our databases.

3. Thesaurus: to broaden or narrow the search (see skill set 5)

E. Search History

1. Some databases track your search history and allow you to manipulate search results from multiple histories (for example combine the search 1 and search 2).

L.O. flash animation from one of our databases showing this feature.

References:

Bopp E, Smith L. (2001). Reference and Information Services: An Introduction (Englewood, Colorado: Libraries Unlimited).