Keyword searching is generally what you use when you are first beginning a search. While a very flexible search, without careful thinking, you can spend a lot of time searching and finding irrelevant information. It is perhaps your biggest challenge when doing library research. Following, are tools and suggestions that can help you become a more proficient searcher.
For example: I am interested in the Opioid Crisis - there are many ways you could approach this
By working through a series of questions like this you will be much better able to target what you want to know, and thus find relevant resources to answer the question.
Another approach to determine what you want to know about your topic is to use a concept map. This technique provides a visual approach to keeping you determine the focus of your research. The concept map can:
Example: A Concept Map Developed to study Climate Change
As mentioned earlier, each academic area of study may have its own vocabulary. To become an effective searcher you need to tap into that vocabulary, but how do you do that? Fortunately, there are reference resources that can help. Following are directions for finding them, and links to several that are used as part of teh GSC curriculum:
To find more terms do a simple Google search on the academic area terms, example: Education terms, then check out each list. Wikipedia can also be an excellent source of discipline-specific vocabulary.
In general, you may find many lists. If you have a choice select the professional organization's glossary (see APA Dictionary). That will usually be the most accurate and up to date.
If you find an article that meets your research needs, use it to identify other potentially useful articles:
Example of Using an Article to Find Other Resources
Keyword searching is a type of searching you are probably already familiar with. It is how you would typically search web search engines like Google. You think of words or phrases relevant to your topic and enter them in the search box. When searching the library catalog, your keywords and phrases are searched for in all of the fields of the catalog record. It is important to remember that because we are using natural language, the word you use to describe a subject may not be the same word used by all of the authors in the field.
Keyword Search when...
Subject searching is a type of searching that allows you to look for categories (or subject headings) instead of keywords. Subject terms are searched for only in the subject field. When the catalog record for an item is created it is assigned at least one subject heading. These subject headings are based on a pre-defined vocabulary in which all items determined to be about the same subject are given the same subject heading regardless of the term used by the author. A drawback of many of these pre-defined vocabularies is that the words chosen are not always the most intuitive or obvious choices.
Subject Search when...
All of the words above play a role in helping you find appropriate resources for your research. Now that you have your topic, a few definitions:
Here are some key points about each type of search:
NOTE: Each of these videos were produced by libraries at other colleges and universities. They make reference to services and resources we may not have at GSC. BUT each contains gems of information on how to improve your searching techniques.
Learn how to improve your search terms when searching a database to enhance the relevancy of your search results! Great video from Brock Library
When doing a search in a database, often language that seems the most natural to use isn’t necessarily the most effective when searching for information. Spending time thinking about your topic, breaking it down, and brainstorming search terms will make searching easier - UCLA