Searching Tips and Techniques

Learning the basics of how to search will save you much time and frustration. These tips and techniques are the same for any research you may be doing, no matter what the topic might be.

Begin by listing key terms relevant to your topic or research question. For example, if you were researching on [insert a research question relevant to the class] your key terms will be [insert terms]. This is known as a keyword search, meaning that the search terms can be found anywhere in the database record for the article, that is, in the title, author's name, abstract, full-text, subject term, etc. This type of search often brings back too many records, many which may be totally unrelated to your topic.

To make your search as comprehensive as possible, add synonyms for search terms, using OR between each word. For example, if you are searching for information regarding rebirth, you might want to use reincarnation as a synonym:

rebirth OR reincarnation

Click below to watch a short video, "Creating Effective Database Searches Using Boolean Operators: OR."

When you want to narrow your search results, use AND. For example, if you want to locate articles that about Buddhism and rebirth, your search will look like this:

Buddhism AND rebirth

Click below to watch a short video, "Creating Effective Database Searches Using Boolean Operators: AND."

There may be times when you need to exclude a term altogether in order to focus your search. In this case you will use NOT to exclude the term. For example, perhaps you want to focus on rebirth but not karma. Your search will look like this:

rebirth NOT karma

Click below to watch a short video, "Creating Effective Database Searches Using Boolean Operators: NOT."

Another useful technique is to truncate search terms. Truncation helps you optimize your search by finding alternative endings to search terms. For example, if you search for Buddhis* you will find articles that use the words Buddhist, Buddhists, Buddhism, etc. In many databases, the * symbol is used to truncate search terms, but consult the help screen of a database if you are in doubt about the symbol it uses for truncation.

Although truncation is a useful tool, it can retrieve irrelevant articles or too many articles. Too avoid that, truncate your terms appropriately. For example, use Buddhis* rather than just Bud*. The latter would retrieve too many irrelevant articles.

Click below to watch a short video, "Using Truncation for Expanded Results in Database Searching."

When putting together an entire search statement that uses AND, OR, NOT, you should use parentheses to group together those terms linked with OR or with NOT. This will help the database carry out your search according to the logic you intended.

Using the various techniques we have gone over, our search example will now look like this:

Buddhis* AND (rebirth OR reincarnation) NOT karma

Subject Searching

To obtain more relevant and focused results, use the same terms that the database uses, usually referred to as subject terms or descriptors. In each database citation you find, subject terms will be included. Depending on the database, you may also see subject terms in the list of articles your search retrieved. Identifying and using database subject terms makes your searching more precise.

Click below to watch a short video, "Finding Articles Using Subject Terms."

Some databases also include an online thesaurus, which you can search to find subject term related to your research topic.

Click below to watch a short video, "Using a Database Thesaurus."