Lincoln Memorial University Libraries: Nursing Guides & Resources: Search Methods

Key Search Strategies

Picking Keywords: Choose words that match what you're looking for.
Combine Keywords: Use words like AND, OR, and NOT to make your search more specific.
Use Quotation Marks: Put quotes around phrases to find them exactly as they are.
Use Shortcuts: Use symbols like * or ? to find different versions of words.
Narrow Down: Use filters to focus your search on what you need.
Look Everywhere: Don't stick to just one place to search.
Check References: Look at the sources others used for more ideas.
Use Categories: Some databases organize things by categories; use them.
Look at Contents: Check out the table of contents and index in books and journals.
Keep Track: Write down what you find and where you found it.

Search Shortcuts

Truncation enables you to search for all possible variations of a word by placing an asterisk at the end of the root word, allowing it to represent any combination of letters that follow. This feature is commonly available in many databases.

Examples:

"comput*" would retrieve results for "computer," "computers," "computing," etc.
"educat*" would retrieve results for "education," "educational," "educate," etc.
"child*" would retrieve results for "child," "children," "childhood," etc.

Wildcards in catalog searching are symbols, like * or ?, that represent one or more characters, allowing you to search for variations of a word or phrase within a database or catalog.

Examples:

Using ? (Question Mark):
- If you're searching for a word with an uncertain letter in the middle, like "wom?n," it would retrieve results for both "woman" and "women."
- Another example could be searching for a word with a variant spelling, like "colo?r," which would retrieve results for both "color" and "colour."
Using ! (Exclamation Mark):
- Some search engines or databases use the exclamation mark as a wildcard for multiple characters. For example, searching for "wom!n" might retrieve results for "woman," "women," and any other words that match the pattern. However, the exclamation mark wildcard may not be as common as the question mark or asterisk wildcards.

Place quotation marks around your multi-keyword phrases to make sure that the search engine or database pulls up results containing the complete phrases instead of irrelevant results that contain the individual words in any order.

Examples:

"climate change": This would retrieve results where the words "climate" and "change" appear together as a phrase, rather than separately anywhere in the text.
"artificial intelligence": This would retrieve results specifically about artificial intelligence as a concept or field, rather than articles that mention both "artificial" and "intelligence" separately.
"global warming effects": This would retrieve results containing the exact phrase "global warming effects," helping to narrow down the search to resources specifically discussing the effects of global warming.

Performing Effective Searches with Boolean Operators

Boolean operators are used in computer programming and database searching to combine or exclude keywords in order to narrow down or broaden search results. There are three primary Boolean operators: AND, OR, and NOT.

AND: This operator narrows down search results by requiring that all specified keywords are present in the results. For example, searching for "cats AND dogs" will return only results that contain both "cats" and "dogs."
OR: This operator broadens search results by including any results that contain at least one of the specified keywords. For example, searching for "cats OR dogs" will return results that contain either "cats," "dogs," or both.
NOT: This operator excludes certain keywords from search results. It is useful for refining searches by excluding irrelevant terms. For example, searching for "cats NOT dogs" will return results that contain "cats" but not "dogs."

Effective use of Boolean operators can greatly enhance research efficiency by helping you to:

Refine search queries: By combining keywords with AND, you can narrow down search results to find exactly what you're looking for.
Broaden search scope: By using OR, you can include alternative search terms, synonyms, or related concepts to capture a wider range of relevant results.
Exclude irrelevant information: NOT allows you to filter out irrelevant results, focusing only on the information that is most pertinent to your research topic.

When conducting research, it's essential to carefully choose and combine Boolean operators to construct search queries that yield the most relevant and useful results. Additionally, using parentheses to group related terms can help clarify the logic of complex searches.