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Research Starters: Crafting a Search

Research Starter workshops to help you search, find, evaluate and cite.

Not Finding Relevant Search Results?

Try three strategies to help you refine your results. These strategies work in Google, Google Scholar, and in library databases.

Example

Research question: How do sleep habits affect college student's academic success? 

Key concepts: sleep habits, college students, academic success

Search: "sleep habits" AND college AND ("academic success" OR "student success")

Search Using Google Scholar

Search Using Academic Search Complete

Online Research: Tips for Effective Search Strategies

Connect Your Search Terms with Boolean Operators (AND & OR)

Use OR to broaden your search.

For example, if you search advertising OR commercials, you will find articles that include either term.

Boolean - OR

Use AND to narrow your search.

For example, if you search advertising AND commercials, you will only find articles that include both terms.

Boolean - AND

Use NOT to exclude results with certain words.

If you search advertising NOT commercials, you will find articles that include the word advertising except for those that also include the term commercials. In Google, use a minus sign instead of NOT (e.g. advertising -commercials).

Boolean - NOT

Find Phrases with Quotation Marks

Use quotation marks to search for a phrase (two words or more).

  • “college students”
  • “mental health”
  • “generalized anxiety disorder”

Find Different Word Variations with Truncation

Use a truncation symbol (the asterisk * is the most common) to look for different word endings.

  • educat* = education, educator, educated, etc.
  • colleg* = college, colleges, collegium, etc.
  • politic* = politic, politics, political, etc.

You do have to be careful with truncation. Sometimes you might get unexpected results.

  • minor*= minor, minors, minority, minorities, etc.

Note: Truncation isn't recognized in Google Scholar. Google Scholar will find various word endings.