Researching tips - Constructing a search strategy

How will you get the best results from your search? Searching for articles is more than just entering key words.

Boolean Searching

When searching databases, keywords are linked together with Boolean operators, creating logical relationships between the terms. In this way, you can tailor your search results, by specifying relevant terms and excluding irrelevant terms.

Combining these operators creates a very refined search, like an algebraic equation, eg: exercis* and program* and rehabilitation

Truncation

You can search for variations of a word by shortening a word to its roots and replacing the remaining letters with an asterisk (*). For instance, the above search for exercise, exercises, exercising etc…..

Phrase Searching

If a key term is made up of more than one word, link them together as a single concept using quotation marks (eg: "Australian Institute of Sport" is more refined than Australian AND institute AND sport). Phrase searching can make a huge difference when searching on the Web.

Putting it all together

These tools can be combined to construct a very specific search - for example:
"health care" AND nurs* AND (aged or elderly) not dementia

• Defining your information need



• Constructing a search strategy



• Evaluating information



• Evaluating print and web resources



• Finding peer reviewed journal articles