BIOS 101/110 Labs: Searching Tips

Start with a clear understanding of your research question or statement.
Write a short question or statement that describes your research topic.  
Examine your question or statement and identify the most important concepts. These are your initial keywords.

Search Strategy Steps

1. Create a Research Question or Statement
2. Identify Key Concepts
3. Find Synonyms and Related Terms for each Key Concept
4. Create Search Statement using Boolean Search Connectors  to Connect Key Concepts

Identify initial keywords, both specific and more general, for your topic, then think of synonyms that could be substituted for your keywords. Remember to search for a broader subject term if you do not find any articles using a very specific term. More general articles will often provide you with important background information and context for your research.

Boolean searching allows you to search using multiple concepts.
The Boolean search operators are AND, OR and NOT.

AND      EVERY concept MUST BE PRESENT  in the search results:
                  Ex:  giraffe  AND  foraging

OR        AT LEAST ONE of the terms will be PRESENT in the search results
                  Ex:  pet  OR cat  OR  dog 

NOT     EXCLUDES terms from your search - USE CAUTIOUSLY.
                  Ex:  zebra  NOT mussel

Truncation allows you to search the 'root' of a word for all its different endings by adding a symbol to the end od a word.  The most common truncation symbol is the asterisk  * but databases vary.

*    finds multiple endings or beginnings
    Ex:    cell*       finds cell, cells, cellular, cellulose, etc.
    Ex:    child*     finds child, children, childhood, etc.
    Ex:   *oxide     finds peroxide, nitric oxide, etc.

$    finds zero or one character
    Ex:    cell$            finds cell or cells
    Ex:    behavior$r    finds behavior or behaviour
    Ex:    wom$n        finds woman or women

Most databases let you limit search results with a limit bar to the side of the results.
Some limits include:

        Publication type / Document type   
                      (article, newspaper, book chapter, book, dissertation),
        Publication  
                      (articles from a specific journal)
        Date of Publication,
        Research areas
        Language  

Some databases, such as Academic Search Premier, will also offer some additional limits:

        Scholarly (Peer-reviewed) Journals
        Full text / Linked  Full Text  (not usually recommended)

You can use this Concept Chart to build your search strategy.
Start with your initial Concept keywords, then fill in other terms that could be used to describe that concept.

Phrase searching will  find the two or more words in the phrase in EXACT ORDER.
The most common way to phrase search is to enclose the phrase with quotation marks.
    Ex:  "Gulf of Mexico"
    Ex:  "carbon storage"  OR "carbon sequestration"

NOTE:  the above search statement WILL NOT FIND articles that only use the words in a different order, such as in these article titles....
              ...storage and turnover of carbon in soils....  
             ....Carbon dioxide capture and storage.....
              ...Sequestration of carbon by soil....   
             ....Underground sequestration of carbon dioxide....

Many databases allow for very complex searching, combining many terms into one search statement.

Use the boolean OR between the synonyms (words with similar meanings) and related terms for each concept.
Use PARENTHESES to "nest" or group the terms for each separate concept .
    Ex.  (utah OR colorado OR nevada)
    Ex. (teens OR adolescents OR teenagers)
    Ex. (anxiet* OR depress*)

Then use the boolean AND between each concept.

Examples of nested searching:
    Ex. geolog* AND (utah OR colorado OR nevada)
    Ex. (teens OR adolescents OR teenagers) AND (anxiet* OR depress*)
    Ex. (bears OR wolves) AND yellowstone AND (visitors OR tourists)
    Ex. "computer hacking" AND (china OR nigeria OR russian )

Most databases include a way to specify in which search fields your term should be found.  Many times there is a box next to the search box which can be pulled down to see the available field options.

TITLE WORDS / SUBJECT HEADINGS
If your search is finding too many results, you can narrow the results by searching for your terms as title words or as subject headings/descriptors.
AUTHOR
JOURNAL NAME / SOURCE
You may want to search only in a specific journal, perhaps related to your topic, such as the Journal of Wildlife Management.