Summary of search techniques
| Technique |
When to use it |
How to do it /examples |
| Phrase search |
Use when you want to find 2 or more words next to each
other |
Use quotation marks eg: "higher education" or
use phrase search option if available. |
| Search for different word endings
(truncation) |
Search for singular and plurals of terms
Search for alternative word endings such as ism, ist etc.
|
Use 'truncation' symbol, usually * (asterisk)
eg: leader* retrieves leader, leaders and
leadership
eg: athlet* retrieves athlete/s, athletic/s
|
| Alternative spellings |
Some electronic sources use American spellings (such as
the Ebsco databases) |
Use * (asterisk) to stand for the missing or different letters
eg: organi*ational behavio*r
Means s or z in organisational and stands for the missing u in
behaviour.
|
| AND |
Links 2 different subjects together |
Use the word 'and' to link the words eg: soccer
and injury |
| OR |
Use when there are alternative terms to describe your
topic |
Use the word 'or' to link the words eg: football or
soccer eg: woman or female. eg: For
information on cameras, try camera or
photography |
| Use when you are interested in either term. |
Use 'or' to link two words eg: knee or ankle
if you are looking for either term |
| Combining searches using AND & OR |
If you link 2 subjects with OR you will usually retrieve a very
high number of hits, so it is often combined with other terms
linked by AND as shown opposite:
|
eg: knee and injury and (woman or female)
eg: (knee or ankle) and injury
Brackets must be used around the words linked by 'or'. Otherwise
the database can't distinguish how you want the terms to be
linked.
|
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