ENGL 212: Intro to LGBTQ Literature: Searching & Browsing

Overview

When so much of our research depends on searching, it's wise to think carefully and plan so that you can craft the most effective and efficient searches. There's no one formula for effective searching, but some techniques will have a big impact:

• Use simple search boxes sparingly and use advanced search boxes/features routinely
• Get comfortable with crafting searches that include the terms AND, OR, and NOT (also known as boolean logic or boolean operators)
• Use quotation marks in your searches to specify literal phrases or names
• Use special characters to truncate search terms and thereby expand searches; the most common truncation symbol is the asterisk
• Read the help pages for databases to learn about their more advanced functionality; a few minutes spent on a help page can save you many more minutes or hours of time with your searches

You may want to consult 5 Quick Tips: Searching a Database in addition to this guide as you develop and craft your searches.

AND, OR, and NOT

Quotation Marks

Enclosing search terms in quotation marks tells the search engine to search very literally for those exact words in the exact order you provide them. If you do not place search terms in quotation marks, the search engine inters an AND between your terms.

For example, a search for King James will return results for any item that includes both the words king and James: "James" might be the author's name of the article, and he's written an article about some king, or perhaps the author uses the term "king" figuratively at a single point in the text. If you're in a full-text database, your results will include many instances like the latter. If what you're looking for are articles about King James of England or the King James version of the Bible, and you don't use quotation marks, you might have to wade through a lot of unrelated results.

A search for "King James" (in quotation marks), however, will return only results where the two words appear together and in the order of your search terms.

Truncation

Truncation is another powerful search feature that allows the computer to do some of the "thinking" and work for you. Truncation is a feature for dealing with different forms of words.

Take, for example, the word symbols. If you're interested in the way certain symbols appear or function in a text, if you search for symbols, you'll find some results, for sure. But what if other scholars have used other forms of the word: symbol, symbolizing, symbolic, symbolizes, symbolism . . . the list might go on. If you used symbol* in your search, it will catch all of these other forms of the word. as well.

Compare the two images below, which illustrate two searches: symbols AND "the tempest" and symbol* and "the tempest" One search yields 7 results, while the other yields 31.

Help Pages

Bibliographic databases, such as the MLA International Bibliography, and full-text databases, such as JSTOR, provide detailed help pages. These help pages provide invaluable information for constructing just the type of search you need. Sometimes search functions vary across databases (AND, OR, and NOT, as well as quotation marks and asterisks are standard), so you'll want to take a look at the search tips in all of the databases you use.

To access the help page in the MLA International Bibliography, look for the Help link in the upper right corner of the bibliography's main page. Clicking that link will load a pop-up window. In that window, look for the Searching heading. You'll likely be surprised by just how much is there!

Being able to search catalogs, bibliographies, and full-text databases is powerful, but you'll also need to rely on good browsing strategies to develop leads. Here are a few strategies for browsing:

1. When you've identified a key journal in your area/for your topic, spend some time looking at tables of contents of journal issues. Not only will you notice trends over time, but you are likely to find articles you might otherwise miss. The power of browsing tables of contents is one of the reasons I've linked to complete journal records on the home tab of this course guide.
2. Spend a couple of minutes to take in the full descriptive record for a book or article in the catalog or database where you find it. If you determine that the book or article is a good one for you, don't stop there. What other information in the record might be useful for you to continue your research? Terms and subject headings are often presented as links that will connect you with other resources dealing with those themes or subjects. Some will be false starts, but others will connect you with relevant resources and begin to give you a broader vocabulary to use when you search.
3. Systematically look through the footnotes and bibliographies of books and articles that you find useful for your project. This strategy is particularly useful when you've located a recent piece of scholarship, as it can be helpful for beginning to develop a chronology of scholarship on your topic.