ENGL 1102 - Kwist (Floyd) - Fall 2017: Search Strategies

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 that video right there! -->) 

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:

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?

A NOTE ABOUT SEARCHING FOR LITERATURE!

When you're searching for information on a work of literature, the title of the work is ALWAYS treated as a phrase.  

Here's an example:

You're searching for information on James Joyce's work A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man...