Research Search Strategies

Effective searching starts before you type anything. Break your research question into key concepts, then brainstorm synonyms and related terms for each concept. This preparation prevents frustrating searches that return too many irrelevant results or miss important sources.

Consider how experts discuss your topic. Academic terminology often differs from everyday language. Use your initial readings to identify the vocabulary scholars use—these terms will yield better results in academic databases.

Boolean operators—AND, OR, and NOT—are the building blocks of powerful database searches. Mastering them transforms random keyword searches into precise, strategic queries.

Enclose phrases in quotation marks to search for exact word sequences. "Climate change" finds that exact phrase, while climate change (without quotes) finds sources containing either word anywhere. This dramatically improves precision for multi-word concepts.

Wildcards expand searches to include word variations. The asterisk (*) represents any characters: econom* finds economy, economics, economic, and economical. The question mark (?) replaces single characters: wom?n finds both woman and women. Wildcards capture variations you might otherwise miss.

Truncation is especially useful for finding all forms of a word. Searching for "pollut*" captures pollution, pollutant, polluting, polluted, and polluters in a single search.

Most databases offer filters to narrow results after your initial search. Common filters include publication date, document type (articles, reviews, books), peer-reviewed status, and language. Use these strategically—filtering too aggressively may exclude relevant sources.

Date filters are particularly useful when currency matters. For rapidly evolving topics, limiting to the last 5 years keeps your research current. For historical topics, older sources may be essential. Consider what timeframe best serves your research question.

Subject or discipline filters help when your topic crosses multiple fields. If you're researching climate change's economic impacts, filtering to economics sources prevents being overwhelmed by natural science literature.

Effective searching is iterative. Your first search is a starting point, not a destination. Review your results: If you get too many, add more AND terms or use filters. If you get too few, try OR with synonyms or remove restrictive terms.

Pay attention to subject headings and keywords in relevant results—these suggest additional search terms. Most databases show the subject terms assigned to each article, revealing the controlled vocabulary that will improve your searches.

Keep a search log documenting your queries and their effectiveness. This prevents repeating failed searches and helps you track which strategies worked best for finding relevant sources.