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Tips for
Searching a Database
Most online search
engines (research database or general internet) assume there
is an AND between each word you search. (Lexis Nexis is an
exception.) Use quotations marks if you want to search for
an exact term.
Ex: TV violence
Try: “TV violence”
Use Boolean
operators (AND, OR, NOT) to broaden or limit a search.
Ex: violence AND
“adult language” = articles containing both words, not
necessarily together
Ex: violence OR
“adult language” = articles containing either word
Ex: violence NOT
“adult language” = articles about mutants but not about
mutant frogs
Pick out the
relevant terms from your thesis; do not type an entire
sentence as a search phrase.
Ex: Violence on
television leads to juvenile delinquency.
Try: violence AND TV
AND “juvenile delinquency”
If you do not get
many articles—or you get articles which are not what you
want—try different search terms. Combine the words in
different ways.
Ex: Violence on
television leads to juvenile delinquency.
Try: “television
violence” AND “social aspects”
Try: “violence on
television” AND adolescents
Some research
databases include a Thesaurus (sometimes called Search Terms
or Index) feature. The Thesaurus lets you find the
database’s “official” subject heading for a topic.
Ex: TV violence
Try: “violence on
television”
In EBSCO, you may
multi-search within many databases. Just check the box next
to each database you wish to search. Warning: Not all
databases provide a browsable index of search terms. If you
combine a database without this feature with a database with
a Search Terms index, you will lose the Search Terms index
option completely.
Search EBSCO,
WilsonWeb, JSTOR, Proquest, etc. You will find different
articles in each database you use. Once you find search
terms that get the kind of articles you want, go back and
try those terms in the other databases.
LRC does not
subscribe to every journal indexed by our databases. You
must look up the journal title (not article, not author) in
the LRC online catalog. |
