Getting Started with Online Library Research

Sometimes, searching for articles on a topic can be a process of trial and error. Keep track of the keywords you search, so that you don't accidentally repeat yourself and you can retrace your steps later.

Here are some tips for common situations. 

Too Many Articles

• Try looking at an irrelevant record your search retrieved, noting the search terms used

Instead of Japan and economy

Try Japan and economy and (auto or automobile or car)

• Check where in the record (the information about the article) your search terms matched.

Doing this can help you figure out what terms to use--or not--in your next search. Look under Subject or Title for matches, and try doing an Advanced Search or a Subject Search, if you can.

 

Not Enough Articles

• Did you spell your search terms correctly?

Autocorrect is not always featured. Check a dictionary if you're not sure of a spelling.

• Get rid of long phrases

Instead of discrimination against ethnic Chinese in Vietnam

Try discrimination and ethnic Chinese and Vietnam

• Try using alternative terms

Not every source refers to a concept in the exact same way. Using other terms to describe your topic in a search can expand your options if you're low on sources. 

• Try to come up with broader terms for the idea you need.

Sometimes, there just isn't much on the topic you want. When this is the case, it's a good idea to broaden your terms and perhaps use your original topic as part of a larger project, instead of as the focus of it.

Very narrow recombinant DNA and sheep

Narrow cloning and animals

Broader genetic engineering and animals

Very broad genetic and animals

 

The Wrong Articles

• Check the coverage of the databases you're using

  If the results you are getting are in no way relevant to your topic question, you may want to see if you're using the right database. Check the library's list of databases and descriptions for something that better matches your topic.  This might be a really good time to talk to a librarian - we know a lot about our library's databases and would be happy to help you.

Index Terms/Keywords

• Aim for two to four keywords (or key phrases) per search. The more keywords or phrases you use, the more limited your search will likely be. 
• Use specific and unique keywords. Find your keywords based on your research question by only using the words that refer to specific concepts.
• While keeping those keywords, expand them, both by narrowing and by broadening the concepts.
  • For instance, if one of your key phrases was "Doctor Who", you could broaden it to include "television" or narrow it to include "Verity Lambert" - though the initial key phrase would likely get you closer to your ideal results. With these key words or phrases, you can delve through the appropriate databases. If you don't find anything at first, try some of the other databases. 
• If you start with academic articles or texts, you can pull additional keywords or phrases based on their research to help your own search. You can also look through the references those articles used and skim them to find any additional keywords or phrases for terminology that you may not have thought of.  

 

Boolean Operators

• In some of the databases, you're going to want to use search operators and modifiers. These will allow you to expand or narrow the search based on certain criteria.
• Not all of the resources function the same way, so always be on the lookout for "help" or "search tool guidance" features. 
• Where applicable, the three main search operators are AND, NOT, and OR. 
  •  AND = both searched terms. Searching Primate AND Habitat will only bring up results that have both the terms primate and habitat, within 
  • OR = either term on each side of the OR. Searching Primate OR Monkey will bring up any results that have either the term Primate or the term Monkey.
  • NOT = no results with that term. Searching Primate NOT Monkey would bring up only the results that have the term Primate in it, but would exclude any results that include Monkey. 
• Quotation marks can be used to group words together as a phrase. Searching  Primate Conservation would bring up results that include those terms (anywhere); searching "Primate Conservation"  would bring up only results that have this exact phrase. 
• Parenthesis can also group aspects of a search together. A search of: "Primate Conservation" AND (Gorilla OR Orangutan) NOT Monkey would bring up results that have the phrase "Primate Conservation" in it as long as it also has either the word Gorilla or Orangutan in it, so long as Monkey is not mentioned.
• For visual depictions, see this Guide from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa

 

Here's a demonstration of some of this in action

Here's an example of some of this in an EBSCO host search

In addition to content produced by the Reference Librarians at JDHL, the content for this module is drawn from the following sources:

EBSCO Tutorials. (2022, March 23). EBSCOHost advanced searching - tutorial [Video].  YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsD0ZH1hx4o

Undergraduate Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. (n.d.). Compare databases and search engines.  https://www.library.illinois.edu/ugl/howdoi/compare1/

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, "Boolean Operators," (2022, August 25). https://guides.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/boolean

University of Toledo Libraries. (n.d.). Quality teaching & learning: Information literacy in Blackboardx.  https://libguides.utoledo.edu/QTL/blackboard 

 

Adapted from PALNI Information Literacy Module 2.
All of the PALNI Information Literacy Modules are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.