Search Strategy

Because of differences in structure and syntax, effective ways to search online will differ slightly from database to database. But there are general concepts in search strategy that can be applied to all.

Keyword Searching

In all of the databases, you may search by keyword. When you type a keyword into an electronic database, the database searches through every article record and retrieves the records containing your search term(s).

When performing keyword searching, you can type in a single word like business, or phrases like affirmative action.

Boolean Searching

What if you want to narrow your search to find the most relevant books and periodical articles on your topic? What if you want to broaden your search to find more books and articles on your topic?

To narrow or broaden a search, you can use the searching method called Boolean logic that employs Boolean operators. Two important Boolean operators are and and or. These operators send specific search commands to the online catalog and the Library's online databases.