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MOR: 58000
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centennialcollege.ca
You may think that you don’t need to learn how to search a library database because you’ve had good luck searching Google (or another web search engine) to locate information. But searching a library resource is not the same as searching for information using Google. A database provides structured access points (e.g., keyword, author, publisher) to help users locate specific resources, whereas a search engine searches unstructured text. To find what you are looking for in a database your search should be concise and concrete - i.e. short and sweet! Check out our tips below for creating an effective search strategy.
Keywords are short, descriptive words that describe the big ideas behind your research question. A library database is a bit different from a search engine, your keywords need to be specific to your topic to ensure you get the best results. The short video on the right (2:30) from McMaster University explains.
Look to your research question or assignment details for inspiration. Nouns generally make good keywords since they are about specific people, locations, or things. Keywords should be about the subject matter/main ideas of your research and can be a word or a short phrase. Usually 3-4 keywords will give your search the right balance of specificity.
WORDS TO USE: Groups of people impacted by the topic (e.g., students, women, newcomers, teenagers), key concepts (e.g., environment, artificial intelligence, mental health, social media), and/or locations make for great keywords.
WORDS TO AVOID: Avoid words like "impact", "effect", "challenges", etc. These words are too broad and will flood your result list with irrelevant resources.
Head to the Advanced Search page and use a separate box for each keyword. You can add additional boxes clicking the " + ADD A NEW LINE" hyperlink.
Research question: How does social media impact teenagers' mental health?
Keywords: Teenagers (key group), social media (concept), and mental health (concept)
Synonyms are words that have the same, or nearly the same, meaning as the main keywords. Synonyms and keywords are interchangeable, which means that the meaning of your search will remain the same but your scope will be more broad. Using synonyms is a good way to capture extra results that are still related to your original topic.
Research question: How does social media impact teenagers' mental health?
| KEYWORDS | Teenager | Mental health | Social media |
| SYNONYMS | Adolescent, youth, minor | Anxiety, depression, self-image | Social network, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat |
In the database, add your synonyms in the same box as their responding keyword (example below). Connect keywords and synonyms with a capital OR (see Boolean operators tab for more info on this).
AND: Use AND to join your keywords. Using AND will also narrow your search since it requires the database to find resources that contain both keywords. If using Advanced Search, ANDs will automatically be added if you use a separate box for each keyword. For example: “mental health" AND teenagers.
If you are searching for a word that has many endings (e.g., education, educator, educational, educated). You could be missing valuable resources if you only use one version of the word. Truncation means to shorten a word; adding an asterisk ( * ) to the end of the root of a word will search for all the variations of the word.
Example: Educat* will search for: education, educate, educator, educational, etc.
You can also use the asterisk as a "wild card". When used this way, the asterisk will search for alternate spellings of a word.
Example: Wom*n will search: woman, women
