Graduate & Online Students: Searching Tips

Starting your Research Assignment

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?

Building your Search

• Start with one keyword and build your search little by little. This will help you learn which keyword or limiter did not work for your search.
• Remember that research is not linear. You WILL have to stop and regroup; sometimes to start over or go in a different direction.
• Think outside the box. If you are not finding results, try the following:
  • Try to think of different keywords (Google your topic, use a thesaurus to find synonyms, look at subject terms). There are many ways to brainstorm additional 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.

Keywords vs. Subject Terms

• 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; similar to tagging posts. 
  • Example: Native Americans are a group of people that can be referred 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. 

Database Tips

• Boolean Operators (AND, OR, NOT)
  • AND narrows your search by telling the database to find all keywords and phrases connected by AND (i.e., apple AND orange). 
  • OR expands your search by indicating that either of your search terms may return results (i.e., apple OR orange). 
  • NOT tells the database to exclude those keywords you do not want included in your search results (i.e., apple NOT juice).
• Use parentheses to group keywords with AND, OR, NOT.   
  • 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. As more effective strategy for this search is to 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 search for an exact 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.
• Using wildcard characters (*, ?, !) allow you to only type part of your search term to search for multiple terms. This is also known as truncation.

  • Use the asterisk (*) for the broadest search and to substitute for any number of letters (i.e., child* = child, children, childhood, etc.).

  • The question mark (?) replaces any character that may come after the base. For example, psych????? = psychiatry or psychology but not psychiatrist because that has seven characters after "psych" and we only entered five question marks.)

  • Exclamation points (!) replace a character in a word to search for spelling variations (i.e., lab!or = labor and labour). 

Filtering Results with Limiters

• 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 may miss out on the most current information on your topic.
• The Peer-Review limiter will filter out reference, ebooks, and newspapers, so make sure you are looking for only scholarly journal articles if using this limiter. 
• Using the Publication Date limiter allows you to search content based on when it was published, such as historical content or within a specific period, such as the last ten years.