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In Lesson 1, you learned that researchers need to have skills for finding, accessing, and using sources. If they don't, they won't be able to find and build upon previously published research. Basic search skills are covered in Lesson 6 of the Information Literacy Basics Tutorial, and if you have not read that content you should view it now, before going on.
Why do search skills matter? To avoid shame....among other reasons.
Why do search skills matter? To avoid shame....among other reasons.
Ok sure – having good search skills isn't necessary in all situations. It is perfectly ok to run quick Google searches to find "good-enough" answers to low-stakes questions, such as "What is the boiling point of water at an elevation of 7,000 feet?" Or, "What dog breed would be best suited for my personality and lifestyle?" That kind of searching is easy and takes little time or skill.
But there are times when you need to be much more thorough in your searching as well as very careful about the quality of the information that you select to use.
Let's look at an employment scenario where it would be critical to have good search skills.
Suppose you are in a brand new job that you got with your brand new college degree – you are working for the Arizona Department of Water Resources.
Your boss asks you to search and find sources on how forest fires negatively affect water quality in streams in Arizona. This is a growing problem since fire frequency and severity is increasing.
You do a quick web search and find several sources that seem relevant, so you summarize them in a report and deliver the report to your boss – even before the deadline she gave you!
Your boss uses your report to prepare for an important meeting where she needs to convince the Arizona state government to allocate more funding to your department to put towards protecting water quality in Arizona streams. She goes to the meeting, which includes government officials as well as representatives from other agencies like the US Forest Service.
In the meeting, someone from the US Forest Service asks if she is familiar with a recently published journal article describing research on post-fire water quality in streams after a major fire outside of Phoenix.
It turns out, she is NOT aware of it. This research is obviously very relevant, but you didn’t include it in your report because you just did a quick search, found some relevant articles, and stopped!
Now your boss looks uninformed and unprepared and this has jeopardized your agency's chances of getting more funding.
NO JOKE – this is a very likely and very real consequence of sloppy, quick searching.
Here is what you failed to realize: Searching to find some sources - and find them quickly - was not the objective.
Rather, your objective should have been to search until you felt confident you were not missing ANYTHING that might be relevant.
The success of your boss's meeting depended on her being fully informed so she could build a persuasive case. And the stakes were high – either your agency will successfully get more funding, or it will fail to get more funding.
So, in this situation, your approach to finding information needs to be completely different from what you are used to – it needs to be thorough and exhaustive.
Think of it as "shame-avoidance" searching, if you like, because you are conducting extremely thorough searches in order to ensure that nobody can call you out on an important piece of research that you missed.
More examples of employment scenarios where THOROUGH SEARCHING matters:
More examples of employment scenarios where THOROUGH SEARCHING matters:
You are told to find best practices for how to do something - or the cheapest way to do something - or the most effective way to do something.
You need to find the best treatment and care for a patient.
You need to check to make sure that research you are about to conduct has not already been conducted.
You are asked to revise and update a policy.
You are asked to explore the implications and effects of a policy for various stakeholders.
You want to write and publish a review article.
Search-skills matter in your personal life too - most commonly in this scenario:
You (or a loved one) has a health condition that you want to investigate to make sure you are getting the best, most up-to-date treatment.
Expert searchers use the following three-step process to search thoroughly.
Expert searchers use the following three-step process to search thoroughly.
Select the fewest, most essential keywords that represent your topic.
Then, gather synonyms for those keywords.
Set up a Boolean search to incorporate all of your keywords and synonyms.
The first two steps are covered in the section Identifying Keywords to Search in the Information Literacy Basics Tutorial. If you are not familiar with that content, you should view it now, before going on!)
The content below explains why these steps are so important and how to set up a Boolean search.
Let's walk through a search example!
Let's walk through a search example!
We'll use the employment scenario you read about above to illustrate how and why this three-step search process works. Remember, you just started a job at the Arizona Department of Water Resources and you've been asked to find information about how forest fires affect water quality in Arizona streams.
Now, consider that there are likely to be lots of relevant articles on this topic that would be important to find, read, and assimilate for your report, such as:
Article 1. The legacy of severe wildfire on stream water quality in Coconino National Forest
Article 2. Prescribed fire in Arizona chaparral: effects on stream water quality
Article 3. Impact of fire on nitrogen and carbon in Arizona's headwater catchments
Article 4. Effects of forest fires on the quality of water in Arizona streams
Article 5. Wildfire has long-term negative effects on the chemical balance of streams in Arizona
Article 6. Effects of wildfire ash on water chemistry and biota in South‐Western USA streams
Article 7. Fire and its after-effects on stream health in Arizona
Article 8. Long term impact of wildfires on stream health in northern Arizona
Article 9. Impacts of fire on watershed resources
Article 10. Southwestern U.S. rivers and fire impacts: managing water sediment and impurities
And now, step 1...
And now, step 1...
How can you ensure that you retrieve all of those articles and more? First, select the fewest, most essential keywords that represent your topic. Why? The more keywords you have, the more you are constraining and restricting what the database can bring back for you. For example, if you enter six keywords to search, such as forest fires water quality Arizona streams, then the database will ONLY bring back results that have ALL of six of those keywords. In the list of 10 articles shown above, this search would only retrieve Article 4.
You can see why this is if you refer to the first column in the table below. Article 4 is the only article that contained all six of the keywords that you asked the database to retrieve; none of the other articles had all six of those keywords, so those articles were not retrieved.
If you instead choose the fewest, most essential keywords that are likely to capture articles on this topic (fires Arizona streams) you retrieve more articles (specifically, Article 2, Article 4, and Article 7). Again, if you look at the table below, you'll see that the search with more keywords only retrieves one result (Article 4 from the list above) because only one article had all of the keywords you put into your search. Meanwhile, the search with the fewest, most essential keywords captured more results because using fewer keywords is less constraining. Take a look:
Perhaps you are thinking: "OK, but the examples above make it seem like if an article title doesn't have my keywords, the article won't be retrieved. But aren't databases searching for my keywords in more spots than just the article title?"
Yup - you're right - the examples shown above are simplified. Still, most databases are only looking for your keywords in a few spots, such as in the article title and the abstract, not in the full-text of the article. So, if a keyword you enter into a search doesn't appear in one of these spots, you are out of luck.
Now on to step 2....
Now on to step 2....
Step 2 is about gathering synonyms for your main keywords so you have an even better chance of retrieving all the relevant articles on this topic. The reason you need to gather synonyms is because people don't always use the same words to talk about the same topic. For example, notice that even though you captured more articles by paring down your search to the fewest most essential keywords (fire streams Arizona) this search didn't capture Article 1 in the list shown above. That's because the author of Article 1 is using the word wildfire instead of fire. Nor did your search capture Article 10, and that's because the author of that article is talking about rivers instead of streams. Most likely you'd still be interested in article 10 because whatever applies to rivers will also apply to streams! So, that's why you need to start looking for synonyms for your main keywords.
There are several ways to start gathering synonyms. One way is to pick some databases and do some searching! For example, here you see a search on fires streams Arizona:
When you look at the results for this search, you're likely to come across possible synonyms in the titles and subject headings of your results – just like you see below. Start collecting these synonyms !!!
Another way to find synonyms is to use an online thesaurus. Or, you can ask ChatGPT for ideas. But be careful, many of the words these tools suggest may not be relevant. For example, when you ask ChatGPT for synonyms for streams it only comes up with one synonym (see adjacent image) that's likely to be used in scientific articles and that makes sense in the context of your topic. But sometimes ChatGPT is a goldmine!
Step 3 - Boolean searching!!!
Step 3 - Boolean searching!!!
Once you've collected synonyms, you can combine them together in a Boolean search.
Boolean searching just means you are using words like AND, OR, and NOT to strategically connect words in your searches, like this:
fires OR wildfire
AND
streams OR rivers OR catchments OR watersheds
AND
Arizona OR Coconino OR "Colorado Plateau" OR southwest OR southwestern
That search, entered into a database, would look like this:
Notice how if you want to conduct a Boolean search, you put each of your main keywords in their own stacked box and connect them together with AND. Then, if you find synonyms for some of your keywords, you add them to the appropriate box and connect them with OR.
Lots of databases provide you with a way to set up Boolean searches using multiple search boxes connected with the word AND.
For some databases you might have to click a link to Advanced Search to see multiple search boxes connected with the word AND. Or you may see an option to Add a search box (see image to the right).
In PubMed you add your terms to a query box that allows you to select the record field(s) you want to search, then you select the Boolean operator you want from the blue drop-down menu. PubMed will then build your search in the box below.
So, there you are. Boolean searching! It's the most efficient and effective way of ensuring your search is thorough. Of course, it takes practice to set up a good Boolean search, so don't freak out if you don't feel confident using this search technique.
After all, you can ask a librarian for help setting up a Boolean search - plus, it's ok to just experiment with a wide variety of simple searches where you switch in synonyms for some of your original keywords, such as:
wildfire AND Arizona AND streams
fire AND Arizona AND streams
fire AND Arizona AND catchments
wildfire AND southwest AND streams
Cool techniques to 'fancy-up' your search
Cool techniques to 'fancy-up' your search
QUOTATION MARKS: Use quotation marks when you want a database to find a well-established phrase such as: "Grand Canyon." But don't go crazy using quotation marks unless you're sure you know what you're doing. Don't, for example, put quotes around phrases that are not well established or not as commonly used, such as the lengthier and more formal "Grand Canyon National Park." If you do, the database will ONLY retrieve results that have that longer phrase and will skip over any results where the simpler phrase "Grand Canyon" was used instead. See how that would be bad?
ASTERISKS: In almost any database except Google and Google Scholar, you can use an asterisk to request that the database find variant endings to a word, such as searching comput* to find compute, computes, computed, computer, computers, and computation.
But, you have to be careful where you add the asterisk. If you add it too soon you'll end up searching for lots of words you don't want, for example a search on comp* will retrieve a gazillion sources that have words in them that have that prefix, but are unrelated to each other, such as: composition, compost, comparison, compromise, compadre, company, companion, etc.
Let's look at another example of the three step search process, just so it all sinks in:
Let's look at another example of the three step search process, just so it all sinks in:
Suppose you were interested in researching the effects of obesity-causing endocrine disrupters across generations.
Pick out the fewest most essential keywords: obesity endocrine disrupt* generation*
Go out and gather relevant synonyms using the techniques outlined above.
Put together a Boolean search, like you see here!
Database search features
Database search features
Search features refer to the different options offered by a database for constructing your search and refining and sorting your results.
One type of search feature is the ability to search your keywords in a specific part of a database record, such as the source's title, the abstract, or subject terms. You can see how this works in the database shown to the left.
Yet another type of search feature is the ability to manipulate your results in various ways, such as sorting them by relevance, date published, or by the number of times they've been cited.
For example, the adjacent image shows all the different ways you can sort results in Web of Science. Wow!
Other search features allow you to refine your results in various ways such as by limiting to English-language sources only, or to certain types of sources like review articles, or to sources published in a certain time span, such as the last five years. In most database, these refinements show up to the left of your results after you conduct a search. PubMed offers an incredible number of filters as you see to the left. But this is just a few of them. If you clicked that button at the bottom of the list to view more, you'd get dozens more filters, like you see below:
Can you see how these filters are designed with the particular needs of biomedical researchers in mind?
Suppose a team of biomedical researchers was working on a project where they needed to collect articles on the use of the drug anastrozole for breast cancer, but they only want to see articles that are randomized controlled trials of human females who are middle aged or older.
They could enter the keywords breast cancer anastrozole into PubMed, then set their filters for the appropriate article/publication type, species, sex, and age. So, PubMed has been carefully designed to allow biomedical researchers to get at the precise information they need.
The adjacent image shows on the records the biomedical research team would retrieve with their search. This article was retrieved because the database found matches for the keywords that were entered, plus it matched up the filter to find only randomized controlled trials in the "Publication types" section of the record. It matched up the filter to find only studies on middle-aged females in the MeSH terms. MeSH stands for Medical Subject Headings. All of these matches are highlighted in white so you can see them.
How does Google Scholar measure up?
How does Google Scholar measure up?
Above, you saw that PubMed offers dozens and dozens of different filtering options to make it easier for biomedical researchers to zero in on the exact types of sources they need.
To the right, you see the filters that Google Scholar offers. Hardly any! This is why it can be much more efficient and effective to search databases that are specially designed for your particular disciplinary area.
Three other sneaky but effective ways to search:
Three other sneaky but effective ways to search:
Sometimes you find yourself in a situation where you've only found one or two sources that are on your topic, even though you've done lots of searching with keywords and their synonyms. So stop with the keyword searching and try some different strategies!
Citation chaining - This means looking at the references cited in the sources you already have, to see if any of those cited sources are relevant. And, you can also look at what articles have cited your article. Google Scholar is great for this purpose.
"Related articles" searching - Many databases, including Google Scholar, offer a way to run a search on articles that share keywords or references. Different databases call it different things, but in Google Scholar it is called a "Related articles" search.
Author searching - Found a great source? Run some searches on the author or authors to see if they have published more on your topic than just the source you found.
Above you see where to click to find citing articles and where to click to run a related articles search in Google Scholar.
Question: What is the most common mistake students make when searching databases?
Question: What is the most common mistake students make when searching databases?
Answer: They don't ask for help and advice from an expert database searcher - meaning: a librarian.
WHY IS THAT, STUDENTS???? Help is available and it saves you SO MUCH time! Keep in mind that your librarian doesn't need to be an expert on your topic in order to know how to find sources on your topic. Review why and how to get help here.
You are finished with Lesson 6. What's next?
You are finished with Lesson 6. What's next?
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