Think About Your Topic:
Plan your search strategy
Now it is time to plan your strategy for researching your topic.
Try to state your research topic as a simple question. It is the question you are going to try to answer. Here is an example:
Try to find the keywords in that question. They are the essential words needed to tell someone what you are going to research
Try to find synonyms or related terms for your keywords -- words that have a similar meaning. If you can't find your keyword when you are searching, you might be able to find one of the synonyms.
| 1 |
2 |
3 |
| employment |
academic achievement |
college students |
| work |
grades |
undergraduates |
| jobs |
grade point average (GPA) |
|
| |
graduation |
|
Think about how you will instruct the computer to include all three concepts in its search. Try a
Boolean Search using the
AND connector. This tells the computer to find all of the concepts.
Use of the AND connector tells the computer that it must find all three concepts for the results to be helpful to you. AND narrows the search to only those records that include all three concepts.
Think about how you will instruct the computer to include synonyms for your concept in its search. Try a
Boolean Search using the
OR connector. This tells the computer to find any one of your synonyms.
Use of the OR connector tells the computer that it can accept any of the possible synonyms to refer to employment. OR broadens the search. If the computer can't find the word employment, it may be able to find the word work or the word jobs.
Think about how you will instruct the computer to exclude certain words if they should come up. Try a
Boolean Search using the
NOT connector. This tells the computer to exclude a certain word.
Use of the NOT connector tells the computer that it should not accept certain words referring to employment. NOT narrows the search. If the computer finds the word volunteerism as a type of employment, it will not include it in your results because you are not interested in volunteer employment.
Think about how to instruct the computer about where you want it to search for your keywords. Databases are made up of records and fields as in the illustration below.
Field searching tells the computer to find your keyword in a specific part or field of the database. A word occurring in the title field or subject/descriptor field or in the abstract field will be more relevant than a word that just appears somewhere in the text of an article.
Telling the computer to find your keywords in the title field or the subject/descriptor field or the abstract field will provide a much more relevant article than telling the computer to find your keyword anywhere at all in an article.
Think about the concept of controlled vocabulary. The words you find in the subject/descriptor field of the database are the
controlled vocabulary used by that database to describe your research topic. In the record below, the controlled vocabulary is College students--Employment.
Using the controlled vocabulary term will enable you to find all the other articles in the database about the employment of college students.
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Raritan Valley Community College / Evelyn S. Field Library
