Research Steps

• Step 1—select a topic

• Step 2—brainstorming for keywords

• Step 3—develop a thesis statement

• Step 4—develop a search strategy

• Step 5—search for resources

Library Catalog

The library catalog requires the use of specific searching techniques.

The following slides will help you with these searching techniques.

Keywords

• Flexible terminology• Easier to do searches• Less accurate

Keyword Phrases

• Single concept, multiple words

• Some electronic resources require keyword phrases be enclosed with punctuation– Quotation marks– Parenthesis

Keyword Phrases

• Basic phrase• Proper names• Hyphenated words• Slogans,

advertisements• Famous quotes• Movie titles, song

titles, etc.

• (computer disk)• “Native American”• (x-ray)• “kills bugs dead”• (to be or not to be)• “Lord of the Rings”

Subjects

• Predetermined terminology– Library of Congress

• More difficult to use in searches

• Very precise

Keywords vs. Subjects

• Native American • Indians of North America

Boolean Operators

• Boolean Operators connect keywords only• Must be placed between keywords• AND

– Narrows your search

• OR– Expands your search with synonymous terms

• NOT– Excludes words from your search– If used too much, it can work against you!

Boolean Operators

• AND– queen and England– trends and teaching and “united states”

Boolean Operators

• OR– queen or royalty– teaching or education or schooling

• AND & OR together– queen or royalty and England– trends and teaching or education or schooling

and “united states”

Boolean Operators

• NOT– queen not hearts– school not fish

• AND, OR & NOT together– England and royalty or queen not hearts

Truncation (Wildcards)

• Non-universal symbols used in searching

• Common symbols: * ?• Used with a root word• Used to replace a

vowel or single character

Truncation (Wildcards)

• Root Word- looks for multiple endings of a word, in this case it takes the place of ‘OR’– jump?– jump, jumps, jumper, jumpers, jumping

– athlete and jump or jumps or jumping – athlete and jump?

Truncation (Wildcards)

• Singular/Plural- replaces a vowel or single character in a word, in this case it takes the place of ‘OR’– wom*n– woman, women

– history and woman or women – history and wom*n