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Research Strategies

Manage your research strategy, use databases more effectively, and understand how the library is organized -- it's all here.

About Keywords & Boolean Operators

 

You cannot type your research question into a library search engine and get a list of appropriate articles for your studies. Databases do NOT use full sentence structures in their search algorithms. You must use individual keywords or short phrases.

Keywords are important words and concepts found in your research question or thesis. Keywords have a profound impact on search results. Using the right words will enable you to more effectively and efficiently execute a research process.

Developing Keywords

 

You must use words most likely to be used by other authors researching and writing about your topic. You need to match what the authors are writing.

What are keywords, synonyms and related words you can also use?

The words you might use are not the ones used by researchers and scholars.  As you conduct your research, note different wordings that are associated with your topic.

We recommend using a chart like in the box below.  While reading your sources,  add important keywords and concepts to the chart. This will help you keep track of your searches and make your research go quicker.

Research Question: Does watching reality TV have an impact on teenagers in the audience?

Keyword ONE

Keyword TWO

Keyword THREE

reality tv

teenagers

audience
  • reality television
  • reality TV
  • reality programming
  • reality show
  • teens
  • adolescents
  • young adults
  • teenager
  • minor
  • immature
  • youth
  • public
  • viewers
  • spectators
  • listeners

Most of the databases you will come across have search bar options that is highly reminiscent of the single search box found on Google-type searches engine sites, where you can type in several words and retrieve results that are at least somewhat relevant.

Database searching is much more selective and will be most effective if you can narrow your topic into concepts.

One method you can use is a chart like the chart below, organizing your topic into 2 or 3 concepts.

            (Concept 1) _______________ OR ________________(Synonymous terms dealing with Concept 1)

            (Concept 2) _______________ OR ________________ (Synonymous terms dealing with Concept 2)

            (Concept 3) _______________ OR ________________ (Synonymous terms dealing with Concept 3)

Using the first example from the Narrowing Your Topic section on the last page, you can break up your research topic into basic concepts such as:

                           (Concept 1) "speech impairment*" OR "articulation impairment*"

                           (Concept 2) sibling* OR brother* OR sister*

Databases offer some unique search options to narrow or broaden your search

  • Add quotation marks around phrases to retrieve that exact phrase.
  • Add the truncation symbol to the end of root words to retrieve multiple word endings. For example, the truncation symbol for most databases is the asterisk * (for multiple characters -- metho* will retrieve results for method, methods, methodology, etc.) and the question mark ? (for single characters -- wom?n will retrieve results for woman or women).

Use the key terms you have developed as your entries in the database search engine. If you are searching multiple concepts simultaneously, use the Advanced Search function and separate each concept on individual lines connected by Boolean operators.

If your search does not return any results, first check your spelling. Secondly, check your search terms. Most databases have a Subject Terms/Thesaurus feature where you can enter your concepts and determine if you are using the correct terms that will be recognized by the database.

Boolean Operators Really Work!

 

Boolean Operators link concepts and are used to broaden or narrow your search. Briefly, here's how they work:

AND - finds results with your all search terms.  AND narrows your search.

OR - finds results with any of your search terms.  OR broadens your search.

NOT - finds results with only one of your search terms.  NOT narrows your search.

Boolean operators (AND, OR, and NOT) are used to connect keywords and concepts when searching.

    Operator    

Example

Result

AND

business AND ethics
cooking AND Spain

Retrieves records that contain    
ALL of the search terms.

OR

hotels OR motels
www OR world wide web
theater OR theatre

Retrieves records that contain
ANY of the search terms, but
does not necessarily include
all of them.

NOT

java NOT coffee
Trudeau NOT Justin

Excludes records containing
the second search term.

 

AND is used to narrow down your search.  When you add AND between two or more search terms, your search results will include all of your search terms.

The blue area in the illustration above represents the results that would be returned for the search Pacific AND Whale. All the articles will have both terms.

OR is used to broaden your search.  When you add OR between two or more search terms, your search results will include either of your search terms.

The blue area in the illustration above represents the results that would be returned for the search Cetacean OR Whale. All the articles will have both terms.

NOT is used to narrow your search.  When you add NOT between two or more search terms, your search results will include only the term before the NOT.

The blue area in the illustration above represents the results that would be returned for the search Cetacean NOT Whale. All the articles will have only one of the terms - Cetacean.