How to Do Library Research

More Keywords Guidance

  • Before typing words into the library databases, think about what words might be used by the kinds of articles you're looking for. Pull out the key concepts that are a part of your research question.
  • If one search doesn't get you what you need, change up your search terms! Read the Wikipedia article on your topic, or some encyclopedia articles, or do a search in Google or Multisearch, to see what words others use when they write about your topic. 

 

Example:

If my research question is, "How can colleges help low-income, first-generation college students graduate on time?" I might try this search first:

first-generation low-income college students graduate

but then that shows me a lot of articles about graduate school. I notice the word "persistence" is being used to describe getting to graduation, so I change up my search to

first-generation low-income college students persistence

that gets me some good stuff, so I save the articles that I like for later, but I try again in case another search will get me even better stuff, like

first-generation higher education student success

and that gets me some different, helpful sources too!

Library Database Search Tips:

  • Are any of your keywords part of a multi-word phrase, name, or title, like social mobility, class resentment, or John McCain? Put quotation marks around it: “social mobility”  "American dream"
  • Open to different variants on a word, like immigrants/immigration, or consumer/consumerism/consumerist? Put an asterisk at the end of the root. For example: consumer* finds articles that mention consumer, consumers, consumerism, or consumerist
  • Want to make sure your search results include a specific aspect of your topic? Use AND to group different concepts together: “gun control” AND legislation will only show you sources that mention both concepts
  • Open to synonyms? Use OR to search for multiple related words: legislation OR laws OR regulation OR legal shows any results with any one of those words ("or gets you more")
  • Getting results that you don't want? Use NOT to exclude certain words: "gun control" NOT australia; jaguar AND (restor* OR conserv*) NOT cars
  • Combine them like this:

search with "gun control" in first box and legislation or laws or regulation or legal in second box

  • Make sure the sources you choose are by a credible author, relevant, current enough, and published by a reputable source. Watch for bias.
  • Can’t find the full text of the article? Click "check for full text" or ask a librarian
Too many results? Too few results?
Add more concepts with AND Make sure everything is spelled correctly, and you only have quotes around phrases
Make sure your topic is narrow enough Use fewer concepts connected by AND, and more synonyms connected by OR
Limit to scholarly articles Use * to find all variants of a word
Narrow your date range

Try Google or Google Scholar (more flexible searches) to get ideas for more keyword
Search by subject, or in title, instead of by keyword If you find a good source, see what sources it uses, and find those
Ask a librarian! ​Ask a librarian!

 

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.