It's worth spending time learning how to search effectively, so that you can be confident you are retrieving the most relevant articles for your assignment. Below we discuss some search strategies that will help you conduct better searches:
Boolean operators allow you to fine tune your search by using the operators "AND", "OR" and "NOT" to combine keywords and expand or narrow your search. The diagram below shows you how Boolean operators refine a search.
Truncation allows you to search for all variants of a word. The truncation symbol is usually an asterisk (*), inserted after the last letter in the stem word.
The table below shows you how to use a truncation symbol and how it affects what a database searches:
| Truncated word: | What the database will search for: |
| mammal* | mammal, mammals, mammalian |
| ecolog* | ecology, ecological |
| river* | river, rivers, riverine |
Database records consist of fields that contain specific pieces of bibliographic information. Common fields include: Author(s); Article title; Journal title; Date/year of publication; Subject headings; Abstract (summary).
Most databases will default to searching in all the main fields, but changing this to search only in a specific field, or fields, can give you more precise results.
For topic searching, it's a good idea to search in the Subject field, but searching in the Title field can work quite well too. If you are searching for an author, you can search only in the Author field; if you are searching for a publication, you can search only in the Publication (also known as the Source) field.
To find the various fields in which you can search, look for drop-down boxes or menus.
Most articles include a list of subject headings or author keywords that convey the overarching themes covered in the article. You can use the subject headings or author keywords from a relevant article to identify additional keywords and common terms.
Below is an example of a database record from Academic Search Complete (EBSCOhost).
In many databases there are also links that you can click and follow.
A proximity search forces a database to find results where one search term appears within a certain number of words of another search term.
The proximity operator varies according to the database. It is placed between the keywords/phrases in the same way as other combining operators. You can usually specify the number of words between the two terms.
The examples below are from EBSCOhost but the databases vary. If you want to use proximity searching you should check the database's Help section.
In any EBSCOhost database:
| If you enter, in the search box: | You will get: |
| macroinvertebrate N4 "lowland river" | Results where the word macroinvertebrate occurs within 4 words of the word "lowland river" as a phrase |
| lowland stream N3 macroinvertebrate* | Results where the phrase "lowland stream" occurs within 3 words of macroinvertebrate or macroinvertebrates |
Proximity operators are different in each of our major databases
n = the number
Wildcard symbols enable you to substitute a symbol for one letter of a word. They are particularly useful for words with multiple spellings.
The wildcard symbol is typically a question mark (?), inserted in place of the variable letter.
| Wildcard word: | What the database will search for: |
| organi?ation | organisation, organization |
| behavio?r | behaviour, behavior |
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