Step 1 - Formulate Keywords
Consider
Author's last name or Title of a work
Topic - a theme, a genre, a historical period, a character's name, a writing style or narrative technique
TIP - browse a thesaurus or a subject heading list in a database if one is available. Certain databases will have subject headings that may be critical for your retrieval of relevant information. For example, in the Library Catalogue, there is no subject heading for Victorian Literature.
Subject headings do exist for:
English Literature - 19th century
Novelists - 19th Century
Step 2 - Categorize/choose your keywords/phrases
Select at least two words. Each should represent different concepts in your topic. Combine concepts in a search with AND
Examples:
Dickens AND poverty
Gaskell AND "industrial revolution"
Step 3: Refine your search if needed
Limit results by using more specific terms
"strike" AND Gaskell
Limit results by adding additional search terms to add other concepts
Poverty AND Dickens AND David Copperfield
Limit by types of sources - like peer reviewed journals
Expand a portion of your results by using more search terms with OR
Example: (poverty OR poor) AND Dickens
Expand the a search term by truncating if you can:
(strik*) to pick up striking strikers, strikes etc)