Developing Your Topic
Finding the right level of research is an important first step. Consider whether your topic is too broad (you're getting too many results or they're not relevant enough to your topic) or too narrow (you're finding too few results).
Use these handouts to help you narrow or broaden your topic and identify keywords:
- Building a Search Strategy - HandoutUse this handout to help you develop a research question, identify potential keywords and synonyms, and determine which boolean operators to use in order to narrow or broaden your search.
- Tips for Narrowing a Topic - HandoutUse this handout if you are getting too many results when searching.
- Tips for Broadening a Topic - HandoutUse this handout if you are getting too few results when searching.
Boolean Operators
Use Boolean Operators as a way to narrow or broaden your search:
AND: use to combine different concepts or keywords; each result will contain all search terms
Example: race AND libraries
OR: use to connect similar concepts or keywords; each result will contain at least one of the search terms
Example: medicine OR health
NOT: use to exclude words or concepts; tells the database to ignore concepts implied by your search
Example: technology NOT database
Parentheses ( ): place around related terms to search for more than one group of keywords
Example: (teaching OR education) AND race
Asterisk *: use at the end of a keyword to search words that start with the same letters
Example: education AND librar*
Keywords
When searching in the databases, simpler is usually better! Avoid using complete sentences - stick to key terms and ideas
For best results, search using the author's name or title of a work and (criticism or analysis)
Example:
"Mary Shelley" and (criticism or analysis)
Frankenstein and (criticism or analysis)
You could also include a literary theory or term:
Example:
"Mary Shelley" and feminis* and (criticism or analysis)
Frankenstein and science and (criticism or analysis)
