Research Process: 2e. Search Strategies

2e. There are two main ways to search a database, catalog, or website for information: keyword or subject.

• The easiest way to search for information electronically is to enter a couple of keywords into the search box of the resource and see what type of results you get. This strategy, however, will often result in too few, too many, or irrelevant results. 
• If you run into problems with your keyword search, you may want to jump into the formal language of the database. This is known as a subject search. The words are generally ones you look up in a database's thesaurus.

Barack Obama and barack obama will retrieve the same results.

Results will typically include each word or punctuation mark included in the search query. Some stop words or exceptions apply.

Keep search queries simple and descriptive and use as few terms as possible. Avoid natural language queries as they can limit your results.
 

Google automatically truncates search terms. To prevent automatic truncation, use a + sign in front of each term.
 

Use double quotations marks ("") to search terms as a phrase and narrow your results. Google will only retrieve results that have those exact terms in the exact order typed.

A query on Barack Hussein Obama II will retrieve only those sites that refer to Obama by his full name. Sites that refer to him as simply 'Barack Obama' may be overlooked.

Use the site: feature to limit your results to a specific website or class of websites.

The query cloning site:online.wsj.com will only retrieve articles about cloning from the online version of the Wall Street Journal. A query on cloning site:.gov will only retrieve results within the government domain.

A query on hotel OR lodging OR inn directories will retrieve any or all of the types of directories mentioned.

business AND ethics
cooking AND Spain

hotels OR motels
www OR world wide web
theater OR theatre

java NOT coffee
Clinton NOT (William OR Bill)