- Keep your initial search simple—single words or short phrases.
- Look for common database tools (suggested subject headings, abstracts, citation help, emailing and save options) on the edges of the page, often in a color bar above the search boxes or in a separate frame on the right or left of your results list.
- Truncation allows you to search variables of a word by typing part of the word plus an asterisk *
- ADOPT finds just adopt, but ADOPT* finds adopted, adopting, adoptions, etc.
- WOMAN finds just woman, but WOM*N finds woman and women.
- Enclose your words in quotation marks to create a phrase search.
- CHILDREN OF MEN finds titles with any combination of those common words.
- "CHILDREN OF MEN" finds the book and movie with that exact title.
- Look for proximity search options.
- Many CFCC databases offer proximity searching by typing multiple search terms within a single search box (with no quotation marks).
- Google also uses a variation of proximity searching, giving more relevance to words typed in a single search box if they appear near each other in the results.
- Use the right Boolean operator.
- AND usually links two search terms and assures both search terms will appear in the same document.
- OR often results in a large number of unrelated (and less useful) results.
- NOT results containing one keyword excluding any with another keyword
Want more information? Try these tutorials from Colorado State University:
