Sample: Is the Corps of Engineers at fault with the collapse of the levees in New Orleans? Should we be rebuilding the levees at all? What is the question asking? Do you have any preexisting knowledge of the topic?
Is the Corps of Engineers at fault with the collapse of the levees in New Orleans? Should we be rebuilding the levees at all?
Is the Corps of Engineers at fault with the collapse of the levees in New Orleans? Should we be rebuilding the levees at all?
Using synonyms for search terms can retrieve additional relevant results.
E.g. Collapse = break, breach, topple, fall
By combining keywords and phrases with AND, we are search for both together. For example:
“hurricane katrina” AND levees | "new orleans levees" AND engineer*
Use OR to search for synonyms or similar ideas. It expands the search to offer results from either terms. For example:
"new orleans levees" AND collapse OR breach
Use NOT to exclude terms from your search results
Using NOT excludes results that you do not want included in your search, providing narrower results. I
"new orleans levees" AND "hurricane katrina" NOT "hurricane rita" | "new orleans levees" AND engineer* NOT fema
To search an exact phrase, enclose the terms inside “quotation marks.” If the phrase is typed without quotation marks, the search results will include each word individually. This creates a massive number of irrelevant results.
“New orleans levees” | “corps of engineers” | “hurricane katrina”
Use an asterisk * to shorten a term to include variations.
engineer* = engineers, engineering, engineered | ethic* = ethic, ethics, ethical, ethically
*Not every word is conducive for truncation. For example, stor* will return results with story, store, storm, and storage.
Wildcard searching uses a question mark ? to substitute for one letter. This is useful for maximizing searches with terms like wom?n, which will return results including woman and women. Another example: engineer? = engineers but not engineered or engineering
Create personal accounts in frequently used databases to save searches and schedule alerts for specific topics.
Be patient and give yourself ample time to explore your topic in different ways and in various databases.
Acronyms that have more than one use can return large numbers of irrelevant results.
SST = Supersonic transport, Smart systems and technologies, sea surface temperature
Databases have different rules related to searching. They will typically have an easily accessible guide and/or indicate when a particular search type in invalid.