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Searching Strategies from Basic to Advanced

This guide provides an approach to strategic searching, in which you gradually target your search by learning from each result and then adjusting the search terms for a more focused set of results.

Getting Started: From Question to Query

Your search for information usually begins with a question. 

For example:  What are some of the controversies related to IQ testing?

Step 1: Reduce your question to just the key words.
The first step is to eliminate all of the words that don't significantly contribute to the meaning of your search. In other words, what are the key words in your search?

Example:  What are some of the controversies related to IQ testing?

Step 2: Make a list of synonyms (similar words) or related terms, if possible.

Example:  controversies-->disagreements, misconceptions

IQ testing--> intelligence testing

Step 3: Start your search with the terms you think experts will use when discussing this topic. 

Strategic search is all about discovering vocabulary. What is the vocabulary experts use related to your topic?

Step 4: Try a search! Think about your first search as an entrance into the topic--not as the destination. In this example, we're using OneSearch, which searches all of Gavilan's databases in a single search. For more about choosing where to search, see the What Kind of Source Do I Need section of this guide. 

OneSearch box on library homepage with search entered and circled. The search is "intelligence testing controversy"

Step 5: Look for the SUBJECT TERMS in the result list. Try replacing your original term(s) with the subject terms that best match yours. The subject terms are listed under the title, author, and publication information. NOT ALL SOURCES LIST SUBJECT TERMS. Just browse the list and see if there are useful terms for you to use. Here's the result from  | intelligence testing controversy |

Result list from "iq testing controversy" shows subject terms under two sources; the subject term used is "intelligence tests"

 

Step 6: Try replacing your original search term with a subject heading that's showing up frequently in the results list. In this case, "intelligence tests" is the term that's getting used in place of "intelligence testing."


Step 7: If a subject term is more than one word, put that phrase in quotes in your search. Why? In our example case, if you search for | intelligence tests |, any document that has the word "intelligence" in it and also has the word "tests" in it will be in the result list. If you place it in quotes, only documents with the term "intelligence tests" will be in the results.

Step 8: Continue the process until you get results that are working for you. Look at the subject terms in your next search results and see if there are other terms to use in place of your original terms. What might be another term for "controversies"? If you get too many sources to look through, think about adding another term to the search. Scan the subject terms in the result list for ideas about what terms to add. Add one term at a time!