1. Successful Searching

2. Learning outcomes At the end of this course, the student will be able to: Interpret an essay question successfully Identify keywords within a question Find alternative keywords to use in a search Expand and narrow a search using various search techniques

3. Search skills are an important tool in effective research. Searching comprises of 3 basic steps : 1)Interpreting the question or topic 2)Brainstorming around the topic 3)Formulating a search

4. 1)Interpreting the topic Often you will be given a long sentence or paragraph as an essay question. While it may be tempting to put the whole thing into Google, this is not the most effective way to search!

5. 1)Interpreting the topic - Keywords A better method is to first identify the keywords in the question. It is a good idea to underline or highlight these.

6. Keywords – Example What do you think the keywords in this question are? ‘Discuss the implications of teenagers drinking alcohol’ Answer ‘Discuss the implications of teenagers drinking alcohol ’ ‘Discuss’ is your command word, instructing you what to do with this topic.

7. 2) Brainstorming around the topic Once you have identified the keywords in the question, the next step is to brainstorm around these words. You need to think of alternative words which mean something very similar to the keywords you initially identified.

8. 2) Brainstorming around the topic Earlier, we identified the keywords in this question: ‘Discuss the implications of teenagers drinking alcohol ’ Now, you want to think of words which have a similar meaning to ‘implications’ ‘teenagers’ and ‘alcohol’

9. implication teenagers alcohol consequences effectsresults drink boozeBinge drinking Young adults Young people adolescents

10. Why bother with this? These extra words you have identified can be used to expand your search. Search engines and databases only retrieve what you put in. So if you put in the keywords ‘teenagers’ ‘drinking’ and ‘alcohol’ in, you will only retrieve articles which contain these words. If someone has written an article on ‘ the effects of adolescents binge drinking ’, you would not retrieve it. Therefore, it is important to build up a bank of words which you can use to broaden your search and make sure you get everything useful for your essay.

11. It should not take long for you to think of two or three alternative words for each of the keywords you have identified. If you can’t think of any – use a thesaurus!

12. 3) Formulating a search Now you have a list of keywords, you can think about how they can be joined together to formulate a search. The following slides contain tips on how you can use your keywords effectively to get the most out of your search.

13. Identify your limits Before you begin a search, think if there are any limits you want to include. Many search engines and databases allow you to specify certain criteria. Are you only interested in material from the past five years? Are you only interested in research from the UK? If so, set these limits before you search, and eliminate any material which will not be relevant to you from your results.

14. Use quote marks Phrase searching using “quote marks” This allows you to search words together in a phrase, rather than each word being searched for separately. eg. “the death penalty” “post-compulsory education”

15. Boolean logic AND, OR and NOT are ‘Boolean operators’ or linking words. They can be used to join words together in a variety of ways to alter your search results.

16. Joining words with AND AND can be used to join any of your keywords together, so that your search retrieves any items which contain both words. This can also be used to narrow your search and make it more specific. e.g. Teenagers AND alcohol

17. Use Boolean logic to narrow your search. If your keywords are retrieving too many results, then you can eliminate a word by using NOT. For example, if you were looking for material on education but were not interested in primary education, you could search for Education NOT Primary which would eliminate those results.

18. Use Boolean logic to widen your search. If your keywords are retrieving too few results, then you can add another keyword from your list using the word OR. e.g. If ‘teenagers AND alcohol’ did not retrieve much You could try Teenagers OR adolescents AND alcohol

19. Truncation Truncation is a technique which broadens your search to contain various word endings and spellings. For example, if you type child* The search will bring back any words which begin with child, regardless of their ending. So if you type child*, you are actually searching for all these words: child* = child, childs, children, childrens, childhood

20. Wildcards Similar to truncation, wildcards substitute a symbol for one letter of a word. This is useful if a word is spelled in different ways, but still has the same meaning. Examples: wom*n = woman, women colo*r = color, colour organi*ation = organisation, organization

21. Where can I search? For essays and assignments, it is important to use a variety of resources – books, journals, websites etc.

22. Books Use the LLC catalogue to see what books we have available in the LLCs. To access the LLC catalogue, click on the link at the top of Moodle which says LLC. This will take you to the LLC website. From here you can click on the link which says Search Library Catalogue. You will be given a search box, into which you can enter a search term, author or title. You could also perform an advanced search by clicking on the link below the box.

23. Books You will get a list of results which match your search items. By clicking on them, you can see whether they are available, what LLC they are based in, and what class number they are located at. Paper journal articles are also listed on the library catalogue. Class number Availability Which LLC

24. Websites There is an advanced search option available with most search engines, which allows you to be more specific about your search. Click on the ‘Settings’ button in the bottom right corner and choose ‘Advanced Search’.

25. This will give you a much more detailed search form, into which you can specify search terms, when the website was last updated, where it was published and other limits.

26. Google Scholar Google Scholar provides access to scholarly journal articles and eBooks. Everything on there is good quality academic information. However, not everything on there is available for free. Click on the arrow at the end of the search box for an advanced search option.

27. The advanced search option allows you to specify keywords and dates.

28. The search will bring back articles and books relevant to your search. Click on a title to view more information. From there you can often see the abstract, link to view the article or book online or download it as a PDF. Unfortunately you won’t be able to view everything on Google Scholar as some require a paid subscription.

29. Another resource which contains a large amount of resources of high academic quality is inspire. This is an academic database containing thousands of academic journals. All the articles are written by professionals in the field and as it is updated daily, it is full of current and up-to-date information. Access is free as the college subscribe to it on your behalf.