Guides: Science Research: Search Strategies

Information Sources

Information Types & Sources

Articles	Articles from academic journals, newspapers, and magazines
Books	Monographs, reference books, and textbooks
Government documents	Reports and data from government agencies
Primary sources	Original sources documenting an event or person such as oral histories, photos, diaries, historical news articles, and scrapbooks
Data and statistics	Numerical data collected by federal, state and local governments, non-profit groups, and international agencies

Understanding Keywords And Key Phrases

Search databases using keywords, such as concepts or subject phrases, that are linked together by and, or, not used to to identify articles and sources. Once you have identified your topic, selecting your keywords is pretty simple.

Divide your topic into concepts/segments/pieces.

In the question, "What is the relationship between fossil fuels usage, greenhouse gases and global warming?," the concepts are: fossils fuels, greenhouse gases and global warming.

Brainstorm for synonyms and related terms.

You will need to translate these terms to keywords later when you are searching databases for articles and sources. Even if a combination of words works well in one database, you may have to change keywords to find results in another database.

Concepts:	fossil fuel	greenhouse gases	global warming
Related terms:	natural energy	atmospheric gases	warmer climate
More related terms:	coal	carbon dioxide	thermal pollution

3. Create your search by combining your keywords using and, or, not.

And is used to narrow your search. Results returned will contain both sets of keywords.
Or is used to expand your search. Results returned will return either keyword.
Not will limit your search, and will exclude a keyword from the results.

You can also use parentheses to combine your search strings:
(fossil fuel or carbon natural gas) and (greenhouse gases or global warming)

4. Follow the database-specific language.

As you do your searching, keep track of the words that appear in the detailed descriptions, or records, of your results list in the fields that will be labeled with headings such as subjects, descriptors, or subject headings. These synonyms and related terms are the specific vocabulary used to describe your search term in that database or discipline. Using these in your search can often improve your search results by making it more accurate and efficient.

Source: SUNY Binghamton LibGuide - How To Do Research: Search Strategies - Understanding Keywords [4/1/20]

Constructing Advanced Searches

Boolean Operators

	AND	OR	NOT
Use	Narrows results as all search terms must be present	Broadens your results (because search results may contain either or both search terms)	Excludes results with whichever search term follows it.
Examples	bridges AND history AND civil engineering	university OR college OR higher education	mercury NOT planet
Visual

Search Modifiers

	Quotes	Asterisk	Parenthesis
Symbol	" "	*	( )
Use	Search multiple words together, such as a name or phrase	Enter the root of a search term and replace the ending with an *	Parenthesis will connect a keyword with two terms connected with OR.
Example	"social media"	coloniz* will search colonization, colonized, & colonizer	(body image or self-esteem) AND ("social media" OR “social platform”)