Keywords
Searching in library databases requires a different set of skills and tools than searching in an internet search engine like Google. One of the first tools you will need are keywords. Searching full sentences or questions in library databases will most often lead to poor results.
Try searching "What factors affect undergraduate satisfaction with their universities?" in OneSearch. What do your results look like? How many results did you receive? Are the resulting items relevant to the question? Now try selecting keywords from this question and searching only those, for example, undergraduate satisfaction AND university. What do your results look like now? How many results did you receive?
Library databases search for every word contained within the search bar, so searching full sentences or questions means that the database is searching for resources that contain all words in your question. By selecting keywords from your research question, you can ensure that your searches are more effective and efficient. Remember that every keyword has synonyms! Try replacing which keywords you search with to see which ones bring you better results.
Another tool to utilize when searching are quotations. By placing quotations around search terms, you are telling the database that you want resources that use exactly that word or phrase, in that spelling and order. For example, searching "undergraduate satisfaction" will result in resources that include that phrasing exactly.
Some additional tricks and tools can be found in the sections below.
What are Boolean Operators?
The Boolean operator "AND" is used to join separate search terms together in order to find information that contains both search terms.
For example, if the search terms "education reform" AND "Texas" were to be searched, only results containing both search terms will appear.
This search would only bring up results that contain both search terms "education reform" and Texas.
Results that only contain the search term education reform with no mention of Texas will not be returned.
Also, results that only contain the search term Texas with no mention of education reform will not be return.
The Boolean operator "OR" is used between two separate search terms in order to find any information on either search term. For example, if the search term "education reform" OR the search term "Texas" were to be searched, all results containing either search term will appear.
This search would bring up results that contain either search terms education reform OR Texas education. All results that contain the search term education reform will be returned. All results that contain the search term Texas education will be returned. This will give you the largest number of results.
The Boolean operator "NOT" is used to specify which search term you want to exclude from the information you are searching. For example, if the search terms "education reform" NOT "Texas" were to be searched, only "education reform" results not containing "Texas" will appear.
This search would bring up results that contain the search term education reform and have no mention of Texas.
What is a Wildcard Character?
You can add special symbols called "wildcards" to a search term in order to receive more results.
Often times this is used if a you're not familiar with a spelling, a word has multiple spellings, or you're trying to recall specific information.
Different search tools, databases, and database providers utilize different wildcard characters.
Some database providers such as Gale, have an option to search one or no unknown characters.
To search one or more unknown characters, you can use a question mark. For example, you could type in "flavo?r" in the search bar.
For example, the search above will result in all occurrences of "flavour" or "flavor".
This means that the wildcard character either represents a letter or no letter at all.
If you have a specific citation for an article and you're not sure if part of the citation contains "ball" or "bill", you can use exactly one wildcard character, b?ll to represent the unknown letter.
Any search terms containing "inauguration" will be returned along with "ball", "bill", "bell", "bull", or any acronyms fitting that criteria.
Database providers such as JSTOR and Gale allow multiple character searching.
The search "ph*ic" may return results containing the words "physiologic", "phonetic", or "phlegmatic".
Some databases allow you to use the single character wildcard multiple times to represent letters in a search. Searches for b??k may result in "book", beak", or "back"
Citation Chasing
A very useful research strategy, especially when writing literature reviews, is to search within the citations or references of a resource. If you can find one or more good articles/books look up the resources they used in their research! If you see a researcher or resource cited by multiple researchers, pay attention to their work. They may be an important scholar in the field who you should mention in your review. This strategy also helps to ensure you never run out of resources to look up.
If you need a resource the library does not have, you can request it through Interlibrary Loan. This service is free for UHV/VC students, staff, and faculty.