Advanced Search Techniques

One of the easiest and most effective things you can do to improve your search results is to improve your search terms.

Keywords

Don’t just type your entire research question/topic into the database or catalog search box! Only enter the most important terms in your research topic. These important terms are called keywords, and most search systems work optimally with keywords, not whole questions or phrases.

For example, if your research topic is “education to train teachers to recognize and respond to suicidal students,” good keywords are teachers, training and suicidal students. In another example, if your topic is "the importance of exposure to germs early in life to bolster the immune system" good keywords are germs, immune system, and children. You usually don't need words like importance, effect, benefits, vs/versus, advantages, significance, etc. And, you often don't need verbs, like recognize, respond, and bolster in the examples above. Good keywords are usually specific nouns.

Advanced Search Tips

Often a simple search with well-chosen keywords will provide you with the results you need. But, sometimes you need to do a more advanced search, depending on your topic and your search terms. Here’s how:

• Use an asterisk (*) to search for all variants of a word. Ex: nutrit* = nutrition, nutritious, nutrient, nutrients
• Put phrases in quotes. Ex: “anger management”
• Use OR (in all capital letters) to include synonyms in your search. Ex: exercise OR workout OR "physical activity"
• Use AND (in all capital letters) to narrow your search to a specific topic. Ex: obesity AND children
• Combine any of the above to create an even more advanced search. Ex: (food OR meal* OR nutrit*) AND "public school*" AND child*

Many of the Library's online resources have built-in tools that allow you to filter your results by date, publication type, peer-review status, or by certain subjects. Look for these filters and use them to quickly improve your search results.