- Break
up your topic into its component concepts.
For
example, suppose your topic is a study of the effects of federalism on
the likelihood of ethnic conflict. This can
be broken down into
the component concepts: federalism, ethnic
and conflict.
- Think of possible synonyms for these
concepts. For example, a synonym for ethnic could be
minority,
another way of saying conflict might
be violence
or even war.
Construct a keyword search on each of the concepts separately by
combining the synonyms with a Boolean OR operator. For example, ethnic OR minority. Note: instead
of the OR operator, some databases give the option of searching any of these.
This has the same effect as using OR.
- Use truncation symbols to find variations on words. For
example, the search term minorit* will find minority and
minorities. Note:
not all databases use the asterisk *
for truncation.
Some use a question mark ? or
exclamation point ! or
some other character. See the help pages of the particular database for
more details.
- After you've executed searches on the separate
concepts, combine the concepts using the Boolean AND operator. Group
your synonyms using parentheses ( )
to represent the concepts, most databases deal with parantheses just
fine. For
example, (ethnic* or minorit*) AND (conflict*
or violen*). Note:
many
databases have a Search History
feature that allows you to select
previously executed searches and combine them using AND or OR.
- By first doing searches on the individual concepts
and then combining them, you can modify parts of your search more
easily, as
well as try further combinations with different keywords. The resulting
set of references should cover the main concepts contained in your
topic. Scan the abstracts to see if the articles you found are
relevant. Note:
many databases will highlight the keywords
you searched indicating where they were found within the record.
- Pay attention to the subject
headings or descriptors of
articles that seem particularly relevant to your topic. You can use
these terms to execute further searches on related themes.
If you still can't find relevant articles,
be sure to contact one of the librarians for more help.
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