Starting your research

Really, the two critical things for searching efficiently are:

1. Be thoughtful with the search terms you choose AND how you put them into the boxes
   1. Search with only a few key concepts
   2. Do NOT search with full sentences or questions
   3. Craft your search using the correct boolean connectors, truncation symbols, and phrases (explained below).
2. Learn to recognize which features of the database will help you get the results most useful for your situation (limiters and subjects)

• The key to being a savvy online searcher is to use common search techniques that you can apply to almost any database, including article databases, online catalogs and even commercial search engines.
• This is important because searching library databases is a bit different from searching Google.
• The techniques described in this section will enable you to quickly retrieve relevant information from the thousands of records in a database.
• When you search a database and do not get the results you expect, ask for advice.  Library staff are happy to help you find what you need.