Graduate & Online Students: Searching Tips

Searching for information to satisfy a class assignment begins with understanding your assignment and your instructor's expectations.

What is My Assignment?

Review your syllabus and class notes to understand the requirements for your assignment. Your syllabus may include details such as:

• • examine both sides of a controversial issue and formulate your own perspective
  • debate three issues associated with a topic
  • describe a social problem and discuss one idea for solving the problem

If you are unclear about your assignment, ask your instructor for clarification.

What Types of Sources Does My Instructor Expect Me to Use?

Some instructors will expect you to use specific types of sources for your research, like books or periodical articles. Some instructors may ask you to use only "scholarly" sources. Librarians can help you distinguish between the different types of sources specified by your instructor and appropriate for your assignment.

How Many Sources Do I Need?

This is a very common question. For many students, the answer gives them some idea about how much work is involved, or how much time they need to spend searching for information.

Unfortunately, there is much inappropriate information available, so it is not wise to take the first few sources that you find in searching any library catalog, database, or Web search engine.

Even if your instructor requires you to use a minimum of three articles, for example, you will need to read more than three to find the three BEST ones. The computer is not smart enough to present you with the BEST sources first. Only you can determine what is BEST for your needs.

What Style Should I Use for Citing Sources?

• Start with one keyword and build your search little by little. This will allow you to know which keyword or limiter did not work in your search.
• Remember that research is not linear. You WILL have to stop and regroup. Sometimes you'll need to start over. Sometimes you be lead in a new direction.
• Think outside the box. If you are not finding results, try the following:
• • Try to think of different keywords (Google your topic, go to a thesaurus, look at subject terms). There are many ways to brainstorm more keywords.
  • Think of broader topics that include your topic and research those. You might find resources that talk about your topic. Example: If you are researching Alzheimer's, you might also search for things like Age & Aging or Dementia, since these broader topics include discussions of Alzheimer's.
• Be aware that some journals have embargoes and will not allow full-text to be available for new articles (from a few months to a year). If you limit to Full-Text, you might miss out on the most current information on your topic.
• Use parentheses to distinguish which Boolean operator belongs to which keywords. 
• Example: Grooming and Dog or Cat, if read left to right would search for information on dog grooming and also search for anything that talks about cats. But the intention was to search for grooming information about dogs and grooming information about cats. To better form this search, use parentheses:  Grooming and (Dog or Cat). The database will search dog or cat first and then apply the and grooming portion.
• Use quotation marks to indicate a key phrase.
• Example: If you are searching for information on global warming, put quotes around the phrase, "global warming", so the database will keep the words together.
• Keywords are concepts. There are many keywords for a concept. Example: car, vehicle, automobile. Each of these keywords refer to the same concept.
• Subjects are controlled vocabulary. A database or library will use subjects to collect all information about a concept in one place. Example: Native Americans are a group of people that can be refered to by many terms (or phrases in this case): American Indians, Indians, Native Americans, etc. The Library of Congress has chosen to use the subject "Indians of North America" to refer to this group of people. No matter what term the author uses, the subject will always be "Indians of North America". This helps keep information organized. 

Boolean operators (sometimes called "command operators" or "operators") are words used in a database to relate your keywords/keyphrases to each other. These words can vary from database to database (some do not use operators). Be sure to check the 'searching tips' or 'search help' section to find out more about operators in the database you are currently using.

AND - place the word AND between your keywords (cat AND dog) and all the results retrieved by the databases must contain both of your keywords.

OR - place the word OR between your keywords (cat OR dog) and all the results retrieved by the database will contain at least one of your keywords.

NOT - (sometimes AND NOT) - place the word NOT between your keywords (cat NOT dog) and all the results retrieved by the database must contain your first keyword and cannot contain your second keyword.