| Keywords | Subject Headings |
|---|---|
| Natural language words | Controlled vocabulary, sometimes jargon |
| Good for obscure or new topics | Good for general and established topics |
| Can generate irrelevant results | Usually generates highly relevant results |
| Need to think of all variations or alternatives | Need to know the correct term |
| Quick and flexible way to start research | Less flexible, not always appropriate |
| Searches several fields (title, abstract, subject headings, etc.) | Searches Subject Heading field only |
Boolean Operators help you define the set of results you want the database to show you.
AND — displays results that have both the terms searched for. This is a narrower search.
Example: If you have 15 items (5 cat, 5 dog, 5 cat & dog), a search for cat AND dog will bring up results for books and articles that have both "cat" and "dog" in them: 5 results.
OR — displays results that have at least one of the terms searched for. This is a broader search.
Example: If you have 15 items (5 cat, 5 dog, 5 cat and dog), a search for cat OR dog will bring up results for books and articles that have either "cat" or "dog" in them: 15 results.
NOT — a way of excluding something. The term that comes after NOT is excluded. This is a narrower search.
Example: If you have 15 items (5 cat, 5 dog, 5 cat and dog), a search for cat NOT dog will bring up results for books and articles that have "cat" in them but excludes results that have "dog" in them: 5 results.
Using wildcards is a way to expand your search possibilities. These techniques work in most databases (but not all).
Wildcards — a symbol used to represent any 1 character. Use # symbol or sometimes * symbol.
Wildcards can usually be used 1) at the end of a word or 2) within a word to search variant spellings of a word. See Truncation for a technique to represent more than 1 character. You can use more than one wildcard symbol to stand in for more than one character.
Example: wom#n retrieves woman or women
Using truncation is a way to expand your search possibilities. These techniques work in most databases (but not all).
Truncation — a symbol added to the end of the root of a word to instruct the database to search for all forms of a word. Use the * symbol in most databases.
Example: adolescen* retrieves adolescent, adolescents, or adolescence
Use quotation marks (" ") around phrases. This forces the database to search for that exact phrase, not all the words in any place or in any combination
"under the sea": 5,598,722 results
under the sea: 6,242,800 results
Pearl Growing, aka Snowballing, is a method helpful in early research that uses one information item (like a subject term, a keyword, or a citation) to find more information. It builds on what you already have.
Pearl Growing with Tools
The default is for the search to look in "any field." This is great for a beginning, broad search but less helpful for specific searching.
Using Advanced Search, you can select which "field" you want to search:
