Earth, Geographic, and Climate Sciences
General Searching
Let's explore how to craft a search that will yield results most relevant to your research question.
Keyword Searching
A keyword represents a central idea or concept that you are searching for. Databases rely on keyword searching, so it's important to break down your research question and identify a few words to begin your search.
Here are some tips for creating and using keywords:
- Think about major concepts in your research question/topic; begin your search with 2-4 keywords.
- Identify synonyms and related terms of the keywords you come up with.
- Do some background research on your topic and note terms that are frequently used to describe your topic.
- Use subject terms identified in database search results; these are words that explain an article's topic, and show how others have approached the topic.
Remember that searching is an iterative process, which means your searching will build and evolve as you move along in the process. Learning to search is also a skill, so don't feel discouraged if you're not finding exactly what you're looking for right away. Feel free to reach out to your subject librarian for support or if you're feeling stuck.
Adapted from: Indiana University Libraries, Finding Sources; University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Libraries, Keyword Searching.
Here are some tips if you're encountering issues when conducting your search.
Too few results
If your searching is yielding not enough results, consider:
- The search terms you're using. Try using related terms, synonyms, or subject terms in relevant databases.
- Using fewer search terms. Begin with 1 or 2 keywords related to your topic, then add more as necessary.
- Removing some of your limiters or filters (e.g. date) that narrow your results.
- Broadening your topic. A very specific topic will bring back fewer results.
- Which database you're using. Databases focus on different subjects, so maybe a different database would be a better fit.
Too many results
If your searching is yielding too many results, consider:
- Add additional keywords to your query.
- Narrow the topic of your search/use more specific keywords.
- Use limiters/filters in your search (e.g. date, format type)
- Search for a short phrase with quotation marks (e.g. "equine management") to return results with that exact phrase rather than the individual words.
Adapted from: Indiana University Libraries, Finding Sources.
Advanced Search Techniques
Boolean Operators
Using Boolean operators connects your search words together to either broaden or narrow your results. There are three basic Booleans:
- AND for records that include both terms (narrows search)
- OR for records that include either term (broadens search)
- NOT to exclude irrelevant concepts (narrows search)
Make sure to capitalize the Booleans when using them. Enclose similar words connected by OR in parentheses (known as nesting).
Examples:
- bovine AND antibiotics: results with include both (bovine) and (antibiotics)
- (bovine OR cow) AND antibiotics: results will include either (bovine or cow) and (antibiotics)
- bovine AND antibiotics NOT resistance: results will include (bovine) and (antibiotics) not resistance
Source: image created by Cecelia Vetter (2021), licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International
Adapted from Indiana University Libraries, Finding Sources
Truncation Searching
Using an asterisk (*) at the end of a root word will allow you to perform a truncation search (also known as word stemming), which lets you search words that may have more than one ending and returns results that include those endings. For example:
- tech* will return results including: technology, technologies, technician, technical
- bio* will return results including: biology, biologist, biological, biotechnology
- genetic* will return results including: genetic, genetics, geneticist, genetically
Wildcard Searching
Wildcard searching is another way to broaden the results of your search. Again, you use a symbol to replace a letter of a word that might have multiple variations. For example:
- wom?n = woman, women
- col?r = color, colour
Databases commonly use the question mark (?) as the symbol for wildcard searching, but check the documentation of the database to be sure.
Adapted from MIT Libraries, Database Search Tips: Truncation
Using one source to find others
If you have found a relevant source for your search topic but are having trouble finding more, you can use the references of that one relevant source. By looking at the citation information, you can see the literature that your source was using for their research. Citation searching helps you quickly find relevant literature and identify useful keywords for your topic for future sources. Some databases allow you to see who has cited the source and how many times, which also offers more potentially relevant research. For more information about citation searching, check out Brown University Library's Guide to Citation Searching.
