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BIOL 110 Walsh: Search Tips

A research guide for Professor Walsh's Current Issue Project

Keep track of Keywords

Make a  list of keywords on your topic.  For example, if you are looking for information about global warming, you might use the following keywords:

  • Cilmate change 
  • Global warming -- political aspects
  • Environmental protection
  • United States -- environmental policy
  • United States -- energy policy

As you do your research, keep a list of keywords that help you get to the information you are looking for.

Keyword vs. Subject

When you do a keyword search you are looking for articles that have that keyword anywhere in the text.  For example, using the keyword climate change you might find an article all about Giant Squids that mentions climate change one time on the last page.  Keywords help you do a broader search, but keywords searches also give you results that may not be relevant to your topic.

When you do a subject search you are looking for articles that are about that subject.  For example, using the subject climate change will give you articles about climate change.  It can be hard to figure out what the right subject term is, but once you find it it will always take you to results that are about your topic.

Tricks for Searching

Once you have identified some good keywords, you can combine those keywords in different ways:

AND

Moroccan
AND
recipe

Results (red) that contain both Moroccan AND

AND narrows a search, producing fewer but more relevant results. recipe

OR

vegetarian
OR
vegan

Results (red) that contain either vegetarian OR vegan or both.

OR broadens a search, resulting in more hits.

NOT

Venus
NOT
planet

Results (red) that contain Venus but NOT planet.

 

 

Another good search trick is truncating by using the symbol *.  Truncating a term such as education allows you to search for a range of word endings within one search:

Educat*  -->searches for --> educatION   educatIONAL    educatOR    educatE