Search Tips and Strategies
Once you have your research question or research topic, what strategies should you use to get the most relevant results in the shortest amount of time?
Let’s say this is your research question:
Does social media promote anxiety among teenagers?
First, identify the key concepts. These are the most important concepts in the research question. Typically, these are nouns.
Does social media promote anxiety among teenagers?
Next, you want to identify related terms for each of the key concepts. Different authors will write about the same subjects using different terms, so to cast a wide net and not miss out on any potentially relevant sources, it is best to give some thought to how an author might write about a given subject.
| social media | anxiety | teenagers |
| stress | young adult* | |
| social networks | fear | adolescent* |
| worry | teen* |
Finally, put it all together using the tips noted on the left of this page:
(“social media” OR Facebook OR “social networks” OR Instagram) AND
(anxiety OR stress OR fear OR worry) AND
(teenagers OR “young adult” OR adolescent OR teen)
This tells the database: find me sources that have at least one of the above terms representing each of my three key concepts.
Remember, too, that research is an iterative process, meaning that what you learn when you do a search can inform a new search. You may find some new keywords to try, or you may further refine your research question or topic.
Once upon a time, a guy named George Boole invented a logical form of searching called Boolean searching, which uses AND, OR, and NOT.
| poverty AND crime | college OR university | cats NOT dogs |
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 |
 |
Boolean images from Shauntee Burns, New York Public Library
When typing words into database search boxes, you want to be as precise as possible. Think of talking to a database as talking to a two-year-old. Just like a two-year-old, the database needs explicit instructions.
To best accomplish this, there are some key conventions to use when searching in databases:
(1) Nest related terms in parenthesis, using "OR" between them. This tells the database to look for any of those terms
ex. (norms OR ethics OR values)
(2) Put phrases (search terms of more than one word) in quotation marks. This tells the database to look for that exact phrase.
ex. "social class"
(3) Link nested sets of related terms with AND. This tells the database to look for sources that have at least one term from each set.
ex. (norms OR ethics OR values) AND ("social class" or "socioeconomic status")
As you are developing your research question, brainstorm 5-10 related search terms which will help you diversify your searching.
For example: Search terms for Racial Inequality could include specific instances of inequality between races such as incarceration rate(s) or wealth disparity.
Search terms for Immigration could include related words or terms like refugee(s), undocumented, DACA;
Search terms can also include names of people, events, or places: while researching Climate Change you could use terms like Greta Thunberg, Paris Agreement, or Hurricane Ida.
Questions to ask to refine or develop your topic and find your research question:
- What do you wonder about this topic?
- What might be the top 10 factual questions you would want answered?
- When did this topic first occur to you?
- Where were you at the time?
- Which questions led you to this topic?
- Which sources or experiences made you think of this idea?
- Why, do you think?
- What might be another way of phrasing or explaining what you want to learn or figure out?
Topic questions modified from Rea and Mullaney, Inside Higher Ed.