Skip to Main Content

ENGL 01A Baker

College Composition and Reading

Keywords

A database will look for results that contain the exact words that you enter into the search bar, similar to the Ctrl+F shortcut.

Databases typically run these searches in the information used to describe source. Unless the HTML text of the entire source is available, a database will not necessarily search the entire text of a source. For example, some databases will typically look for word matches in the title, abstract (summary), and the tagged subjects (hashtags) field of an article. Ultimately, you are banking on an author having used your exact wording somewhere or that this wording is present in the information about a source.

Because of this, searching for an entire question or statement isn't very effective for your research.

Instead:

  • break down your research question into 2-4 concepts that represent your topic
  • come up with synonyms or related terms for the concepts you come up with
  • try different combinations of terms using operators

Watch the Video

Learn how you can "squeeze research questions" to pinpoint keywords in the following video. 

"Selecting & Using Keywords" (4:13) is by Krueger Library - Winona State University

Operators, Quotes, and Truncation

There are some other strategies you can use with keywords to help refine your searches a bit more.

Operators

  • Boolean operators are words you can use between your keywords to either broaden or limit your search.
    • AND: use the operator AND in between dissimilar terms to narrow your search
      • "South Africa" AND racism
    • OR: use the operator OR in between similar terms (synonyms) to broader your search
      • apartheid OR segregation
    • NOT: use the operator NOT with a term to exclude results that contain that term
      • language NOT Afrikaans 
  • You can also use both AND and OR:  
    • racism AND ("criminal justice" OR courts) AND "South Africa"

Quotes

  • To find phrases (two words or more that need to be together), use quotation marks. This will command the database to retrieve results that contain the phrase. 
    • “South Africa”
    • “criminal justice system”
    • "Apartheid legislation"

Truncation

  • To find different word variations, use a truncation symbol at the point in a term in which other variations are likely. The asterisk * is the most common truncation symbol. 

    • Africa* = Africa, African, Africanism, etc. 

  • You do have to be careful with truncation. Sometimes you might get unexpected results.

    • minor*= minor, minors, minority, minorities, etc.

Watch the Video

Learn how to combine your keywords with Boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT; search for phrases, and find different word variations in the following video.

"Online Research: Tips for Effective Search Strategies" (3:04) by Sarah Clark is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

Limiters

  • Many databases have limiters to help you refine results, such as: 
    • full-text (i.e., articles that are available to read right away)
    • publication type (e.g., news, magazines, peer-reviewed journals, etc.)
    • publication date (e.g., 2010-2020)
  • Some databases will also have limiters for language, methodology, geography, etc.
  • Available filters will depend on the specific database.

Database limiters