Finding information requires a lot of skills that you may not be aware that you have or that you are developing.
Review the information in Step 4 to learn about evaluating what you find. Check out information in Step 5 about Citation Trails to learn how to discover additional citations to relevant works to help you answer your research question.
Before you start entering any search terms, spend a few minutes trying to think of as many relevant terms and combinations of terms as you can. This will help you to avoid getting stuck in a rut with the first terms that come to mind. For example, if your question is, "how can the Black Student Union increase membership? and I only search on the concept "Black Student Union," I will miss out on relevant articles that use the broader term "student organizations."
If you need help in coming up with terms, you may want to try the "Thesaurus" or "Subject Headings" features in the database you've chosen.
Check out the "Help" or "Search Tips" to learn some of the search features specific to that database. Most databases provide similar features, but the methods may vary. Some common tricks:
Try the databases' Advanced Search feature, which usually gives you the ability to search multiple fields (author, title, keyword, subject, etc) with one search and may offer additional ways to expand or limit your search.
If your first search strategy does not work, try another approach.
Bronwen's thanks to colleagues at IU - Indianapolis for allowing reuse of this graphic.
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