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ENGL 101 - Library Skills Objectives - Maple Woods

Objectives

Students will adjust and refine search strategies based on their search results.

Students will build search habits recognizing that first attempts may not always produce adequate results.

Objective Video

What's Wrong With Your Search Results?

If you're overwhelmed with thousands of search results, you'll want to narrow your search. Here are some strategies:

  • Use the Boolean operator AND to add additional required keywords.
  • Make your search more specific. If you were researching food insecurity, try adding an element like food insecurity in Kansas City, or food insecurity for children.
  • Use filters and limits to remove search results that don't meet your needs. Many library search tools will let you eliminate sources that are too old, aren't in the format you want, or for other reasons. Watch the videos below to see how filters and limits work in the library catalog and in Proquest Research Library.

Modify a Search in the Catalog from MCC-Maple Woods Library on Vimeo.

You've found one or two good sources, but that's not enough. Here are some ways you can broaden your search:

  • Use the Boolean OR operator to add additional options. For example, if you're searching for teenagers AND depression, you could try (teenagers OR adolescents) AND (depression OR "mental health").
  • Make your terms less specific. If you can't find enough about body image and Instagram, try searching for body image and social media.
  • Use the sources you did find. Look at the keywords and subjects used in your source or on its record, and add those terms into your next search.
  • Follow references. Scholarly articles have reference pages listing sources used in creating the article. These sources might be useful to you as well. Watch the video below to see some tools that will help you find referenced articles.

If you've tried several searches and aren't finding anything, take a moment to think back to the characteristics of different source types and ask yourself if you're looking in the right place. If you're researching the effects of a recently passed law in a database of scholarly articles, there may not be a lot written yet. If you want some quick statistics, a web search might help you more than the library catalog.

If you think you might not be using the right search terms, look at a reference source on your topic. The words they use may give you ideas for how to create your searches.

If you're still not getting anywhere, that's a great time to ask for help from a librarian.