To successfully find material in a library database such as Academic Search Premier there are several techniques that will help you.

Identify Key Concepts

Whether you have a thesis statement or research question you will want to identify the key concepts/main points. These are going to be the search terms that are entered into the database. The key concepts/main points are normally nouns and verbs.

Example of a thesis statement:

Genetically engineered crops pose threats to environment such as the possibility of gene transfer from the genetically engineered crop to wild plants.

Key concepts: gene transfer, genetically engineered crops, wild plants

Notice that these are only nouns or verbs.

 

Example of a research question:

 What programs are the most effective in preventing teenage smoking?

 Key concepts: programs, teenage smoking, prevention

 

Cautions:

Avoid these common mistakes when searching, they usually result in little to no results:

1. Entering phrases such as "effects of global warming on human health". Instead try "global warming" AND "human health"
2. Entering whole sentences, such as "The theory of multiple intelligence better explains true intelligence than IQ testing alone". Instead try "multiple intelligences" AND "IQ testing"
3. Entering questions, such as "What are the major causes of the Diabetes type II in adults?" Instead try "diabetes type II" AND adults AND causes.

  

Practice identifying the key concepts in these thesis statements and research questions: 

   

Brainstorm keywords

For each of your key concepts it will be helpful to brainstorm a list of synonyms or related terms. This is done to generate additional search terms and is often necessary because many concepts can be described by more than one word. For example, a search using the word "cars" may not be as useful as a search using the word "automobiles". Therefore, it will be helpful to incorporate both of these terms (cars and automobiles).

Use connector terms (Booleans)

Connector terms (Booleans), such as AND and OR provide instructions to the database about how to handle your search.

AND

For example, combining terms with AND tells the database that all terms listed must be included in the results.

Ex: adaptations AND grizzly bears

will retrieve items containing both of these terms.

 

One way to illustrate this is by the use of a Venn diagram:

 

 

Note that an AND search will only retrieve items as shown in the orange area at the intersection of the two circles above. Also note that this is a smaller subset of articles than either the yellow area (only grizzly bears) or the pink area (only adaptations.

 

OR

Combining terms with OR tells the database that at least one of the terms must be included in the results.

EX:  weightlifting OR bodybuilding

will retrieve items containing at least one of these terms, weightlifitng or bodybuilding

 

Again a Venn diagram can illustrate the results of a search. By using OR, you will get a much larger set of results:

 

 

 

Note that an OR search will retrieve items anywhere within the two circles: items that include the term weightlifting, or the term bodybuilding, or that include both.

 

COMPARISON OF BOOLEAN CONNECTORS

CONNECTOR	EXAMPLE SEARCH	WILL FIND	THE EFFECT IS TO	USE WHEN
AND	grizzly bears AND adaptations	items containing both grizzly bears and adaptations	narrow the search	there is more than one keyword and each needs to appear in each item
OR	weightlifting OR bodybuilding	items containing weightlifting, bodybuilding, or both	broaden the search	a keyword can be described by more than one term (such as bodybuilding and weightlifting) and you want to find items where either term appears

  

YouTube video on using AND and OR (Boolean searching):

 

Use these activities to practice using Boolean operators:

 

   

 

Value: 1

If I am doing research on England, which of the following search strategies would be the most useful? a. England b. England AND France c. England OR Britain d. (England OR France) AND Britain

Use truncation

Truncation broadens your search to include words with the same root/word stem. The most common symbol for truncation is *. For example, if you search:

 

Educat*

 

you will retrieve education, educator, educational, educate, educating, educated, etc.

 

Make sure not to truncate to far or you could get unrelated words. Example: Ed* would retrieve words related to education as well as editor, edition, edifice, etc!

 

TIP: Use the database help pages to determine which symbol to use for truncation (not all of them use the asterisk (*) symbol)

 

Practice using truncation:

 

Value: 1

All databases use the * symbol for truncation True False

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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