The problem with searching is you don't know how many results you will get until you have conducted the search. The goal, therefore, is to create an effective search. An effective search will get you a large amount of relevant results and a low amount of irrelevant results. But doing this in one try can be tricky. The strategies below will help you troubleshoot your search to either broaden it (to get more results) or narrow it (to get more relevant results), allowing you to find what you need for your project.
*Always remember, although we want to try and get an effective search the first time, you can always go back and change it!*
I am going to use the following research topic as an example to walk through the steps
How has the bicycle impacted the autonomy of different populations throughout history?
You are going to pull key subjects, words or ideas from the question, these will be the concepts
For the above question concepts would be;
What are Keywords;
Concept 1 Keywords
Concept 2 Keywords
Concept 3 Keywords
Step 3 is to connect your keywords or sting them together to make a search statement
What does it do?
For Example
Search Statement: bicycles AND autonomy
Results: would include all the words in the statement so the results would be those that discuss both bicycles and autonomy
What does it do?
For Example
Search Statement: autonomy OR freedom
Results: Articles about autonomy, articles about freedom, and articles about autonomy and freedom will all be retrieved
What does it do?
Be careful using NOT as you can easily exclude relevant results
For Example
Search Statement: Egypt NOT Greece
Results: Articles that have the word Egypt. Will not have articles that mention Greece. This includes articles that have both Egypt and Greece in them.
How They Work;
FOR EXAMPLE
Search: bicycles AND "human rights"
Number of Results: 65
COMPARED TO
Search: bicycles AND human rights
Number of Results: 1.728
How they work;
FOR EXAMPLE
Search Statement: freedom AND (bicycles OR bikes)
Number of Results: 657
COMPARED TO
Search Statement: freedom AND bicycles OR bikes
Number of Results: 106,175