Search Tips

When you are ready to search for sources, there are tricks that help you work smarter instead of working harder. Many of these tricks work for research databases, the library catalog, and the internet.

See our advice below to help you level up your search skills:

1. Stick to the Basics

Having Siri on your iPhone, Google Home devices, and Amazon Fire TVs might make it seem as if you can ask any question and get a (mostly) right answer. This is not the case for research.

This technology is smart (and getting smarter) but it is not human. The best way to search information spaces when performing research is to stick to the basics and build on them.

🚫 DONT type in your entire research assignment description, research question, or thesis statement into the search bar.

✅ DO pull keywords and key phrases from your description, question, or thesis statement and use those to search. These are called search terms.

✅ DO come up with synonyms for those keywords and key phrases to try different approaches to finding information.

Example Thesis Statement:

Young Adult novels that deal with controversial issues offer teens a realistic view of the world, encourage honest communication by and with teens, and equip teens with strategies and tools in the event that they face similar issues.

Example Keywords / Search Terms:

“young adult” “controversial issues” “teens” “realistic” “honest” “communication” “strategies” “tools”

⚡ TIP: There are online Keyword Generators from Indiana University and the University of Texas that can help you come up with keywords for research.

2. Keep Notes and Keep Track

As you search for sources, keep track of the search terms and phrases you use. The different ways you try to search for information is called your search strategy.

What worked? What didn’t work? Would a synonym work better? Is a certain term giving you results that have nothing to do with your topic?

Keep this advice in mind: you will not find everything you need with your first search.

🚫 DONT give up just because your first attempt didn't give you useful results.

🚫 DONT stop with the first page of results! The best results are not always the first ones!

✅ DO keep track of the search terms and phrases you used and what combinations got you the best results

✅ DO try different information spaces (research databases, the internet) and see how your different search strategies work in different spaces

Example Problem:

You tried searching using the following terms together:

young adult teen controversial issues

Now you are getting sources in your results that talk about every issue that could ever happen to a teen or adult! That is not what you wanted.

Example Solution:

Your search terms are simple (which is good!) but too broad. You need to be a little more specific to get results that are helpful. Try these terms:

“young adult” novel teen “controversial issues”

The terms above make it a little more specific, so you don’t get tons of useless results. It’s all about making adjustments.

You could also try swapping “controversial issues” with something specific like “mental health” or bullying if you’d like even more specific results.

3. use search tricks and shortcuts

There are shortcuts and tricks to searching research databases, library catalogs, and especially Google. We used one of them above in our example.

We will show you a few you might not know about it. You can start using them right away!

TRICK #1: QUOTATION MARKS

Use quotations marks around two words or more to search for that exact phrase.

Example:

“Mike Trout”

By putting Mike Trout in quotations, we are telling the search tool to search that exact phrase, instead of searching Mike and Trout separately. Searching them separately will give you loads of unhelpful results (a lot of guys named Mike and a lot of fish).

TRICK #2: USING THE "AND" TAG

Use the tag AND between phrases to search for results that include BOTH (or all) of those phrases.

Example:

“Mike Trout” AND “rookie season”

By putting the AND between our 2 phrases, we are telling the search tool that we only want results that talk about Mike Trout’s rookie season, instead of all of his seasons. This is another way to make you results more specific.

TRICK #3: USING THE "OR" TAG

Use the tag OR between phrases to double-up your searches and show results for any of those phrases.

Example:

“Mike Trout” OR “Millville Meteor” OR “Trouty”

By putting OR between these 3 phrases, we are telling the search tool that we want to results for any of these phrases. We want to make sure we find all the articles about Mike, whether they use his real name or one of his nicknames.

TRICK #4: USING * TO FILL IN THE GAPS

Use the * (asterisk symbol) as a placeholder at the end of a word or between words if you aren't sure what goes there or you want to see variations.

Example:

“Mike Trout wins * award"

By putting the asterisk ( * ) between words in this phrase in quotes, we are telling the search tool we want any results that have any word before award. This lets us see results for all of the different awards he has won so far. Hey, there are a lot!

EXTRA GOOGLE TRICKS:

Here are just a few of the tricks you can use when you are searching Google for sources:

1. Use the - (dash symbol) to tell Google to exclude specific words or phrases from your results.

Example:

“Mike Trout” -salmon

2. Use the "site:" tag to tell Google to search a specific website or domain.

Domains tell us what type of website we are looking at. We recommend searching for: .gov (government websites), .edu (educational websites), and even .org (nonprofit websites)

Example:

site:.org “Mike Trout” -Wikipedia