Search Strategy

• Identify the major concepts
• Select the appropriate database(s). Consult the database documentation
• Determine your search terms, i.e., significant words or phrases. Consider the plural forms of words
• Determine the scope of your search, i.e., keyword search, subject search, title search, etc.
  Unless your topic is very focused, it may be best to begin with a broad search, and then narrow your focus as necessary
• Identify any limits, e.g., publication date(s), type of publication
• Consult the database indexes to determine appropriate terms and correct spelling before executing your search

Boolean Searching

OR will retrieve records with any of your search terms
     folklore or barbados retrieves records in which either word appears
AND will retrieve records with all of your search terms
     folklore and barbados retrieves records in which both words appear
NOT is used to exclude terms
     folklore not barbados retrieves records in which 'folklore' appears and 'barbados' does not

Keyword vs. Subject Searches

A keyword search retrieves records in which the search term appears in any field of the record. Also known as a free text search, any term may be used in a keyword search. The subject search is a narrower search. A subject search retrieves records in which the search term appears in the subject field of the record. It requires the precise subject heading or descriptor from the controlled list used by the database. You will need to browse the database index to determine the correct term.

Parentheses

To search for either 'women' or 'gender' in 'Barbados', enter (women or gender) and barbados
Compare women or (gender and barbados)

To search for either 'women' or 'gender' in either 'Barbados' or 'Trinidad', enter
(women or gender) and (barbados or Trinidad)

Phrases

Depending on the database, entering academic achievement may execute:
a boolean OR (academic or achievement), or,
a boolean AND (academic and achievement)

To search for academic achievement as a phrase, enter "academic achievement"

Proximity Searching

tax n reform retrieves records in which the term 'tax' appears next to the term 'reform'. The word order is not specified
Databases often allow the option to specify the number of intervening words that may appear between the search terms.
tax n5 reform retrieves records in which the two terms appear within 5 words of each other, e.g., records with the phrase 'reform of income tax'

Stopwords / Reserved Terms & Characters

Stopwords are words that will retrieve too many hits, and are therefore not normally indexed for searching. Examples include 'their' 'for' 'of'. Reserved terms and characters are terms and characters that the database reserves for its own use, and are not normally used as search terms. Examples include 'or' and 'near' which are normally reserved for boolean and proximity searching respectively.

Databases sometimes make special provision for searching these terms. Consult the database documentation or help files.

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