THINK first, SEARCH later.
- What kind of resource are you searching for? (Book? Video? Website? Academic article?) This tells you WHERE to search: Galileo, GIL, or in a web browser!
- Are there other important things you need to consider?
- Something written by a specialist? Go for Peer Reviewed!
- Something written during a specifc time? Check out the date range!
- What information are you searching for? This is where keywords come in. Make a list. Check it twice! (Don’t know anything about keywords? Watch the video called keywords on this page!)
Always remember: KEYWORDS are critical!
Here's an example.
My topic is "Females have brought a positive element to the military."
My keywords in this topic are "female" and "military" and maybe something like "benefit".
My "related words" lists might look like this:
female
|
military |
positive |
woman (women)
|
soldier |
benefit |
girl |
army |
good
|
So I could mix and match - pick one word from each list and I could get great results from each search!
OR - if I wanted to be even more specific, I could make a phrase: <"Female soldier"> and then add a word from my third list: <benefit>. My full search would look like this: <"female soldier" benefit>
See how that works?