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Biology: Search Effectively

Resources guide for undergraduate students in biology

Searching

Tips for Searching Effectively

Search Strategies

After you have finished brainstorming and/or created a mind map, you have likely generated several key words to start your search. 

Here are a few things to do:

  • Identify main concepts: Identify key ideas related to your research topic.
  • Brainstorm synonyms: Generate alternative terms and phrases.
  • Broaden and narrow terms: Include broader and narrower terms to capture more information.
  • Account for variations: Consider alternate spellings and word forms.

TIP - If you search by phrase, put the phrase in quotation marks. For example, let's say we want to search for articles about cell culture protocols. This is how our phrase would appear in the search box:

"cell culture protocols."

The database will search for the entire phrase, instead of these three words individually.

You can create a search string using Boolean Operators:  AND, OR, NOT. 

Here is an explanation from EBSCO. To see visual examples, scroll down.

AND

OR

NOT

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