To get relevant results when searching, it's important to first plan what's called a search strategy. This involves:
The section below will help you develop basic skills in identifying keywords and in using specific search strategies. To develop a deeper understanding of these and to learn other research skills (e.g. choosing a well-defined topic, evaluating information, understanding research articles), complete the tutorials on our Tutorials page.
Keywords, also referred to as search terms, are words that represent the main ideas of your topic. These words are considered the most important, (or the key), ideas, concepts, or subjects about which you’re looking for information. Keywords are what you want to use when searching databases and other sources for information. Using key terms in search engines like Google, instead of natural language (e.g. typing in an entire question), will often eliminate many of the undesirable websites that would otherwise appear in the search results.
Generally, it’s recommended to use 3 to 5 keywords. The more keywords you use, the more specific your search and the narrower your results will be.
Let’s use the following research question to practice identifying keywords.
How does prejudice impact Indigenous peoples in Canada’s health care system?
The main ideas, or keywords, are:
By searching these words together, results related to them will be returned.
When determining the keywords of your assignment topic, it can help to write the topic out in a sentence, then circle the most important words or ideas. The words you circle can then be used to search for information.
Three simple words can have a big impact on your research.
Boolean is a set of commands recognized by nearly every search engine, database, or library catalogue that:
The three basic Boolean operators are:
Be sure to always capitalize Boolean commands. Some databases only recognize the operators when they're capitalized.
Use AND in a search to:
The area of the smaller "dementia AND Alzheimer's" overlapped section of the circles in the middle of the Venn diagram represents the result set for this search. The number of results in that section are smaller (or narrower) than they would be if searching each term on its own.
To see an example of the AND operator in action, let's look at the list of results when we search for "dementia AND alzheimer's" in some of the Library's EBSCOhost databases.
In this example, about 33,000 results were returned. If the words are searched individually, dementia returns nearly 72,000 results and Alzheimer's returns about 70,000 results - much more than when the two terms are searched together with AND.
Use OR in a search to:
The entire area of the "dementia" and "Alzheimer's" circles, including the overlapped section, in the Venn diagram represents the result set for this search. The number of results is larger (or broader) than it would be if searching each term on its own.
To see an example of the OR operator in action, let's look at the list of results when we search for "dementia OR alzheimer's" in some of the Library's EBSCOhost databases.
In this example, nearly 109,000 results were returned! This is more than when the two terms are searched separately (around 70,000 results for each term, individually) and much more than when the two terms are search together with AND (about 33,000).
Use NOT in a search to:
The large circle with the cut-out in the Venn diagram represents the result set for this search. The number of results is smaller (or narrower) than it would be if searching the term on its own.
To see an example of the NOT operator in action, let's look at the list of results when we search for "dementia NOT alzheimer's" in some of the Library's EBSCOhost databases.
In this example, nearly 39,000 results were returned. This is less than when the two terms are searched separately (around 70,000 results for each term, individually) and slightly more than when the two terms are search together with AND (about 33,000).
Databases follow commands you enter and return results based on those commands. Be aware of the logical order in which words are connected when using Boolean operators:
Examples:
Adapted and used with permission from Southern Methodist University Library.
Find the exact phrase, with your words in the exact same order as you entered them in the search. "Medication errors" will give you results with both of those words in direct order, instead of results with the words found separately.
