Advanced search strategies

The information on the previous page helped you plan and start searching for information in Primo and databases.

On this page you'll find a range of advanced search strategies that can help you further refine and focus your searching, to lead you to more relevant resources.

To see these strategies in action:

Field searching

Records in library databases are made up of different fields that contain specific pieces of information about each source. By focusing your search on certain fields, you can get more relevant results. Common fields include:

  • author
  • title
  • journal title
  • abstract
  • publisher
  • subject/descriptor

Searching within the abstract field (AB) can be especially helpful. Since abstracts summarise the main points of an article, they often contain important keywords. If you find a keyword in an abstract, the article is more likely to be relevant. Abstracts are also a good place to find extra keywords that you can use to improve your search strategies.

Some databases will have additional fields relevant to the content or discipline area of the database. For example, in ACM Digital Library additional fields include:

  • conference location
  • conference sponsor

And in IEEE Xplore additional data fields include:

  • funding agency
  • standards ICS terms

Explore the full list of IEEE Xplore data fields.

Facets and limiters

Most databases allow you to limit your search or refine your results set by facets. The options will depend on the database you are searching.

Common facets include:

  • date
  • language
  • subject area
  • geographical area
  • material type
  • journal title

In many cases, you can also limit a search to scholarly or peer reviewed articles.

Use the material or publication type options to refine your results to particular resources types including:

  • reviews
  • market and industry reports
  • government reports
  • conference papers
  • journal articles
  • trade publications
  • case studies
  • thesis

Thesaurus and subject headings

Journal databases use a controlled vocabulary when organising article records, which helps group information by topic. By controlling the vocabulary, the database makes sure that synonyms and similar phrases are all listed under one main term.

You can use the database’s vocabulary in your search. When you're in a database, you'll usually find a link near the search boxes called Thesaurus, Subjects, or Subject Headings.

Proximity Searching

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.

Examples from an EBSCOhost database:

N=near

W=within

If you search for You will get results for
stress N3 gaming Results where stress is within 3 words of gaming in any order
stress W3 gaming Results where stress is within 3 words of gaming in the same order

Tracking Citations

Once you have found a good article, you can use its citations or reference list to find additional resources.

Remember you will still need to evaluate any resource you find using these methods.

Footnote chasing

Check the reference lists of articles you have already found to find related readings. This will lead you to resources that are older, so keep this in mind if your lecturer would like you to use recent material.

Citation searching

Check who has cited the article you've already found. This will lead you to material that is newer.

Some, but not all, databases have a feature where you can see who has cited the resource at which you're looking.

The database is unlikely to show you every citing article. This is because no database will contain every resource written on a topic. A database can only compare its own records.

You can also use our citation databases to undertake footnote chasing and citation searching.

Use EndNote

You might like to consider using EndNote to collect and store references for your assessments.

EndNote is bibliographic management software that is freely available to CSU students. With EndNote you can:

  • record and manage the details of journals and books you have found in your research;
  • store and manage PDF copies of articles you have downloaded;
  • annotate and add notes to PDFs;
  • insert in-text citations and reference-list entries into essays.

Work through our Discover EndNote Modules to learn how to use EndNote.