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Humanities - Postgraduate and Research Support: Database Search Tips

Post-graduate library guide for students in Humanities

Database Search Tips

Welcome to the Database Search Tips library guide! This guide is designed to help you develop effective strategies for finding high-quality information in academic databases, saving you time and improving your research results.

Courtesy: LA City College, The Stryberg Library, and The Knowledge Network

Boolean Operators

Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) help students refine and structure their searches by combining or excluding keywords. They enable precise control over search results by narrowing or broadening the focus of the query.

Search: Impact of social media on mental health among university students.

This search strategy ensures you capture relevant articles that discuss either social media or social networking sites in relation to various mental health aspects, specifically within the university student population, while eliminating irrelevant results that might only focus on one of these concepts in isolation.

 

 

 

Truncation and Wildcards

Truncation and wildcards enable students to broaden their searches by including various forms of a word or accommodating spelling variations. This technique is particularly useful when dealing with words that have multiple endings or alternative spellings.

Search: "Social media" AND mental* AND Behavio?r

  • Truncation (mental*) retrieves results for mental, mental health, and mental illness.
  • Wildcard (behavo?r) retrieves results for behavior (American spelling) and behaviour (British spelling).

 

Phrase Searching

Using phrase searching with quotation marks (" ") helps you find exact phrases or words that must appear together in that specific order, preventing the database from treating the words as separate concepts.

Search: Artificial Intelligence in Education.

  • Searching for "Artificial Intelligence" rather than artificial intelligence separately ensures your results focus on AI specifically, rather than retrieving articles that might just mention the words "Artificial" and "Intelligence" separately in different contexts
  • This technique is particularly useful for searching specific concepts, theories, or proper names like "Cognitive Behavioural Therapy" or "Social Learning Theory," where the meaning of the combined terms is different from the individual words searched separately.

 

Courtesy: Evelyn & Howard Boroughs Library

Field Searching

Field searching allows students to specify where they want their search terms to appear within a database entry (e.g., title, abstract, author). This targeted approach improves the relevance of search results by focusing on specific areas of interest.

By employing field searching, students can streamline their research process by retrieving only those articles that are most relevant to their specific interests, thus saving time and increasing the efficiency of their research efforts.

 

 

Additional Database Search Tips

Proximity Searching

  • Proximity searching allows students to find results where keywords appear close to each other in the text, which can indicate a stronger relationship between the terms. 
  • Example: A student interested in renewable energy might search for "Solar Energy" NEAR/3 "Efficiency" to find articles where both terms are within three words of each other.

Use Filters and Limits

  • Most databases allow you to refine your results using filters like publication date, peer-reviewed journals, language, and document type.
  • Example: Limiting results to articles published in the last 5 years ensures that your research is up-to-date and relevant.

Leverage Subject Headings

  • Subject headings are standardized terms used in databases to categorize articles. Using these can lead you to more accurate and comprehensive results.
  • Example: Searching with a subject heading like "Social Media in Adolescents" can help retrieve articles specifically categorized under this topic.

Controlled Vocabulary

  • Controlled vocabulary refers to standardized terms or phrases used within a database to categorize information. Using these terms ensures that your search aligns with the database's terminology, leading to more precise and comprehensive results.
  • Example: If a student is researching "Global Warming," they might use the controlled subject heading "Climate Change" instead. This can be done by selecting it from a dropdown menu in the database’s advanced search options.

Search by Citation

  • If you find a useful article, use its references or citation trail to locate additional relevant studies. Many databases provide tools to view articles that cite a specific work.
  • Example: Clicking on "Cited By" in a database can reveal newer articles building on the work you’ve found.

Save Your Searches and Set Alerts

  • Many databases allow you to save searches and set up alerts for new articles that match your criteria. This is particularly useful for ongoing research.
  • Example: Setting an alert for "Mental Health" AND "Teenagers" AND "Social Media" ensures you are notified of new studies as they are published.

Your librarian will show you how to string the keywords or words under which you want to search together. These searches can be repeated on other databases as well.