In searching for books and other materials in the catalog and other library databases, it is important to determine what terminology to use, and how to construct a search, in order to get the most relevant results.
For example, in researching climate change and national security (or climate change and gender, or climate change and human rights), there may be several ways of expressing the same concepts, all of which can be searched to find materials while keeping focus and avoiding "noise".
Research question: What effect does climate change have on national security?
| Concept 1 (OR) |
AND |
Concept 2 (OR) |
| "climate change" |
|
"national security" |
| "climate insecurity" |
|
"political economy" |
| "global warming" |
|
geopolitics |
| "energy security" |
|
conflict |
| "climate policy" |
|
|
| "climate justice" |
|
|
| "green economy" |
|
|
| "climate crisis" |
|
|
| "climate stress" |
|
|
A search for this question might look something like this:
("climate change" OR "climate insecurity" OR "global warming" OR "energy security" OR "climate policy") AND ("national security" OR "political economy" OR geopolitics OR conflict)
As you look at the results you might find additional ways of expressing these concepts, which you can then add to your search. Conversely, if you find there are too many irrelevant results, you might remove some search terms (e.g. removing OR "political economy") or add some that are more specific to the type of material (e.g. adding AND handbook) or geographical area (e.g. adding AND "South Asia"). There is also the option to limit the search to certain parts of the bibliographic record, like the title, subject headings, or abstract, rather than the full text. This can help to focus the results.
Tip: If you are searching phrases that are similar — such as "climate change", "climate insecurity", "climate justice", "climate policy", "climate crisis", etc. — you can use a proximity (near) search: (climate N2 (change OR insecurity OR justice OR policy OR crisis)) will search for the term climate within two words of any of the other terms. Keep in mind that not all databases have the same options or use the same Boolean operators (search term connectors). A cheat sheet for Boolean operators among different databases can be found here.
You can also use the search limit options within the results — for example to a type of material like scholarly journal articles; a time range; or a geographical area (in some databases).
