Developing a search strategy

Words Matter:

  • Choose keywords instead of natural language.
  • Keywords are the words or phrases that people type into search engines to find what they’re looking for. 
  • Don't use natural language (in other words, full sentences) to search for library resources. 
  • Instead use main words that are representative of your topic.  

Google works differently than library databases:

When searching Google, most students say they only look at the top five or ten search results, often stopping because the results become irrelevant after that. When doing research in a library database, however, you should get used to looking at far more results to find the sources you need. Watch the following brief video to learn how you can ensure that the most relevant results appear at the top of your list, by using appropriate keywords and search techniques.

 

Every word matters in a search:

If you include words that are not important to your topic, a search engine like Google or a library database will still search for them. 

Example of an ineffective search:

What are occupational hazards of medical professionals?

Example of an effective search:

occupational hazards medical professionals

Word choice matters as well:

Library databases and search engines find information resources by searching for your keywords in the title, abstract, subjects that have been assigned (think hashtags), and sometimes the full text of the item. If they do not find your search term in any of these places, they will not return that item as a result.

For better results think about the language that would be used in the type of source you want. For example education experts might use the term “academic performance” to express the concept of “better grades”. So a search for better grades, might not find relevant articles if that concept was expressed as academic performance instead. Similarly if you search for a resource about phones and grades using the keyword iPhones, but the author never users the term iPhone and only uses the term smartphones, then that perfect article will not appear in your search results.

Tip: Don't know what terms experts would use to talk about a subject. Try searching your topic in Google. A Google search for "Do poor people get different medical treatment?" brings up articles that mention the terms health care and low income. Another search mentions medical disparities and under-served populations all which are "expert" terms for the same topic.      

This really important paper would not show up in the results of a search for students and better grades because it never uses the term "better grades".  

Exaggerated example of a scholarly article with blank text except for the terms academic performance and students.

 

Example: Creating a Search Strategy using keywords:

Here are some simple search techniques that can increase the relevance of your results and save you a lot of time.

Step 1:  Pick your keywords

Figure out your Keywords: Your keywords are the main concepts or ideas of your paper.

For example the keywords for a paper on "difficulties Americans face voting "

        • Difficulties 
        • American 
        • Voting  

Step 2 : Find synonyms

Use related words and phrases (synonyms): There are multiple ways to express the same concept.

Voting  synonyms also be:

        • Vote 
        • Elect 
        • Election 

American synonyms can be:

        • United States 
        • Narrower by State or Local Government 
          • Texas --> Dallas 
        • Narrower by community effected or group of people: race, ethnicity, gender, age group
          • Latino/a    
          • College students 

Difficulties synonym: Difficulties is not a good keyword. Be specific about what the difficulties are: 

        • Voter Suppression 
        • Voter ID Laws 
        • Voter Purges 
        • Voting Rights Act 
        • Gerrymandering 

 

Step 3 : Understanding AND / OR 

Use "AND" and "OR"  (in capitals) to pull you keywords and synonyms together. This way you can search for multiple concepts effectively.

AND = finds sources that contain all keywords

Latino/a AND Voter suppression AND United States 

OR = finds sources that contain at least one of these keywords

Latino OR Latina OR Latinx

*Latinx is still a new(ish) term. Use all three of these keywords together for the most effective search. 

 

Step 4 : Tips and tricks for your keywords

    • Use quotation marks “....”:

If one of your synonyms contains more than one word (e.g., "Voter Suppression") use quotation marks (" ") around the whole phrase to ensure the words are searched for together and not separately.

Step 5:  Pulling It All Together

Use parentheses ( ), called nesting, to group the related terms. Next, use OR between each related keywords

(Latino OR Latina OR Latinx) AND "Voter Suppression" AND "United States"

 

🚀 Next, What is scholarly
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