Once you have decided on the keywords for your topic, you must tell the database something about how you want to combine your keywords by creating a search string. The example below shows the search string for the topic which uses multiple advanced search techniques.
How Did The United States Use Rationing/Ration Books During World War II?
“United States” AND (ration* OR “ration books”) AND “World War II”
| Strategy | What it Looks Like |
|---|---|
| Start with Keywords: | United States, rationing, ration books, World War II, |
| + Boolean Operators: | AND connects three different ideas; OR connects similar ideas; |
| + Phrases: | quotation marks ” “ around phrases to keep words together |
| + Wild Card: | asterisk * at the end of a word to search multiple endings |
| + Nesting: | Parentheses ( ) keep synonyms together |
🔎Advanced Search Techniques
Boolean Operators
Boolean Operators (AND, OR, NOT) tell the database how you want your keywords to be connected in the search.
Use them to narrow (AND), broaden (OR), or exclude (NOT) keywords in your results.
Example: dogs AND cats
Phrases
Double quotation marks ” ” allow you to search for an exact phrase in most databases.
Use them to narrow your search results to more relevant items using an exact phrase.
Example: “affirmative action”
Nesting
Nesting allows you to group your search terms and to dictate the order in which the operators will be carried out. Specifically, everything within the parentheses ( ) is searched first.
Use them to keep broaden your search and keep synonyms together in your results.
Example: (ration OR garden)
Wild Card
With this technique, you cut off your search term to its root and add a symbol, usually the asterisk *, that instructs the computer to search for all words that begin with those letters, no matter which letters may follow.
Use them to broadens your search for words with various word endings will work such as nurse, nurses or nursing.
Example: nurs*
⛓️Citation Chaining
Once you find a few good article on your topic, follow the citation chain to find newer or older articles in the same scholarly conversation
- Check the references, especially cited in the introduction, for older articles
- Search Google Scholar for the article and click on the (Cited by) link underneath to find newer articles which cite this article in their references