Developing searching skills

When studying at University you will be expected to use a variety of information sources to support your studies. It is important to use academic or scholarly sources when researching for your assignments in order to ensure that information is credible, reliable and accurate.

Academic sources are written by academics and experts in their field, are often peer-reviewed by other experts for accuracy and quality and are supported by references so you can find further information.

• Textbooks
• Journal Articles
• Professional/Government Reports
• Statistics

 

Have a look at our page on Academic Sources for more information

Keyword Searching is an effective way of searching databases and search engines.

Identify keywords

This involves identifying the keywords or search terms from your Assignment Brief or Research Question. Send time planning your search terms before you begin searching, as appropriate keywords can make the difference between finding too little, too much or irrelevant information.

Think of alternative words or search terms (synonyms)

How else might someone describe your topic? Are there other words which have a similar meaning but which might improve your results?

For example, if you were looking for information on teenagers, try searching instead with the terms adolescents or young people.

Professional terminology

If your subject area contains a lot of professional terminology you could try searching with an everyday term to see if it improves your results.

For example, in healthcare, hypertension is the medical term for high blood pressure. Searching with this term may retrieve more results.

Abbreviations

Consider using abbreviations in your searching as these might retrieve different results to typing in the full term.

For example, you could use the abbreviation P.T.S.D. instead of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Refine your search

In order to make your results more relevant you can also refine your search results in a database using limits such as publication date and type of resource.

 

When entering your keywords into a database there are several advanced searching techniques you can try which will help you search more effectively and get a more focused set of results.

Combing Search Terms (Boolean)

Boolean operators are small connecting words which combine your keywords in a particular way to help you to either narrow or broaden your search.

AND - narrows your search by telling the database to only find results which include all of your keywords. AND is the default search in most databases.

For example, a search for law AND nursing will find results which relate to both terms.

 

OR - broadens your search by telling the database to find results for any of your keywords. This is useful if you have several keywords with a similar meaning. 

For example, a search for teenager OR adolescent will find results including either term.

 

NOT  - narrows your search by telling the database to exclude particular words from your search results. This can be useful to eliminate terms relating to a particular aspect of your topic that are not relevant to you.

For example, a search for media NOT radio will only find results about media that don't mention radio. 

 

Phrase Searching

This is a technique which will narrow your search giving you more relevant results. By putting quotation marks around two or more words that you want to search together, the database will search for your words as a phrase, with the words in that exact order instead of individual words.

For example, searching with the phrase "food security" will retrieve fewer but more relevant results than searching with the words separately. If you don't use quotation marks you will get some very irrelevant results as the database will search for the words separately and not just next to each other as a phrase.

Truncation 

This is a technique used in most databases which will broaden your search results to include various word endings and spellings. This technique will also save you time. 

Truncation works by adding a symbol to the stem or trunk of a word that has alternative endings. Most databases use the asterisk symbol for truncation.

For example, searching with ethic* will find results including the words ethic, ethics, ethical, ethically, etc.

HINT: Be careful when using truncation that you use the most appropriate stem, e.g. searching with physio* will not just give you results about physiotherapy but  will also find results including physiology, physiological etc. 

Refining your Search

Most databases will allow you to refine your results in a variety of ways which will help to make them more focused. This includes refining by date and place of publication, article type, language, age group etc.

 

Serendipity in research is finding the unexpected or something you were not searching for.

Serendipitous searching, e.g. by browsing the shelves in the library in your general subject area, can often result in finding something really useful by chance which you would not otherwise have found.