Search Strategies

1. Search Strategies

2. Electronic Searching Let’s talk about search techniques within databases. Each database is a little different, but they all use some of the same search techniques. In this unit, you will learn about Boolean operators, field searching, keywords versus subject headings, proximity searching, truncation, grouping terms together, and browsing. You will also learn how to map out your search strategy. Let’s begin with a sample search question.

3. Sample Search Question =Is it ethical to conduct research with young children? • 3 Main Ideas • Ethics • Research • Children

4. Define Synonyms Ethics Integrity Honesty Ethos Moral code Principles Standards Conduct Children Adolescents Child Childhood Youth Juvenile Minor Teenage Research Tests Testing Experiments Psychological evaluations Trial Measure This is the first thing to do after you have your search topic. To find synonyms, think about words that are used interchangeably with your main ideas. Also, a thesaurus can be extremely helpful.

5. Map Out Your Strategy Ethics OR Integrity OR Honesty OR… AND Children OR Youth OR Adolescents OR… AND Research OR Testing OR Experiments OR… In this example, you are looking to combine all your synonyms using the Boolean operator OR. Then, you combine those statements together using AND. We will practice using this strategy in the databases in the next unit. For now, let’s look at Boolean operators and other search techniques.

6. Boolean Operators The Boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT are used to combine keywords within searches. Using these operators can make your search more focused and can produce precise results. Let’s see how they work!

7. Boolean Operator: AND Limits Your Results children ethics children AND ethics AND combines terms so that your search will contain all of those terms. For example, children and ethics finds articles that contain both terms.

8. Boolean Operator: OR Expands Your Results children youth children OR youth OR - combines search terms so that your search will contain at least one of the terms. For example, children OR youth finds results that contain either term.

9. teenagers Boolean Operator: NOT Limits Your Results children • Children NOT Teenagers • NOT - excludes terms so that your search result does not contain any of the terms that follow it. For example, children NOT teenagers finds results that contain the term children but not the term teenagers.

10. Field Searching • Field searching allows you to limit your search to a certain field, for example, the keyword field, the author field or the title field. • You can select the field from the drop-down menu next to where you type your search term.

11. Keywords vs. Subject Headings Subject headings are the most precise way to search a database. Keywords can also be of help to you. Let’s look at a few key points: *table adapted from http://libraries.mit.edu/tutorials/general/subjectsearching.html

12. Truncation and Wildcard You can use a truncation or wildcard symbol in searches where there are different word endings or varied spellings. Truncation: use * (this can vary in different databases) Example: Child* retrieves child, children, childhood Wildcard: use ?(this can vary in different databases) Example: wom?n retrieves woman and women

13. Proximity Searching Proximity searching allows you to search for words that occur within a specified number of words of each other. The proximity operators are composed of a letter (N or W) and a number (to specify the number of words). The proximity operator is placed between the words that are to be searched. Near Operator (N) - N5 finds the words if they are within five words of one another regardless of the order in which they appear. Example: child N5 welfare would retrieve child welfare as well as welfare of a child. Within Operator (W) - In the following example, W8 finds the words if they are within eight words of one another and in the order in which you entered them. Example: child W8 welfare retrieves child welfare but would not retrieve welfare of a child. *adapted from EBSCOhost’s support site at http://support.ebsco.com

14. Grouping Terms Together A simple way to group terms together is to use quotation marks. Generally, putting quotes around 2 or more terms will search for the exact phrase. Another more complex and therefore more powerful search techinique you can use to group terms together uses parentheses. The left phrase in parentheses is searched first; then, based upon those results, the second phrase in parentheses is searched. Generalized Search: child or youth and welfare or well-being In this example, the search will retrieve everything on child or youth welfare as well as everything on welfare or well-being, whether or not the articles refer to child or youth.  Grouping Search: (child or youth) and (welfare or well-being) In this grouping example, we have used the parentheses to control our search to only find articles about welfare or well-being that reference child or youth. *adapted from EBSCOhost’s support site at http://support.ebsco.com

15. Browsing Browsing is a way to search the subject headings or indexes of a database. Most databases will allow you to browse an author index or a thesaurus, for example, or to browse the subject headings index for terms to add to your search. This function is located in different places for each database.

16. Map Your Own Strategy Now that you have an understanding of the different search techniques you can use, you are ready to map out your strategy. When you are searching in the databases in the next unit, you can use your mapped out strategy to perform your search. Also, you can expand or limit your search using some of the techniques like browsing, proximity etc. that you learned here.