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Physics

KEY DATABASES

SEARCHING TIPS

Keywords are...

  • A good way to start a search.
  • The important concepts in your own words.
  • Found anywhere in the article (title, author, subject terms, etc.).
  • Very flexible.

Try Boolean Operators...

  • "Or" broadens your search results.  (Citrus OR Oranges OR Lemons OR Tangerines OR Grapefruit)
  • "And" narrows your search results. (Rainfall AND Deforestation AND Brazil)
  • "Not" narrows your search results. (Wound healing NOT Plants) (Social media NOT Facebook)
  • "Not" can be used to weed out biased words or phrases associated with your topic. (immigrants NOT illegal aliens)
  • Combine operators for more complex searching. (Coastal sage scrub AND fire OR Postfire OR Postburn)

Truncation...

  • Broadens your search
  • Enter the root of a word and put the truncation symbol at the end.
  • The database will return results that include any ending of that root word. (teen* = teens, teenager, teenagers, teenaged.  environment* = environments, environmental, environmentalist)

Wildcards...

  • Broadens your search.
  • Use if a word can be spelled several different ways but has the same meaning.
  • Wom*n = women, woman,  col*r = color, colour

Limit to Peer-Reviewed, Refereed or Scholarly articles...

  • This is part of the publication & editorial process for academic and research journals.  Being peer-reviewed is a sign that a paper's author(s) have done a certain level of due diligence in their work and their research is complete, manages conflicts-of-interest, and is fair and objective.

Narrow the Date Range...

  • When looking for Current Research or Evidence-Based Practices limit your date range to the last 3-5 years.

 

For some of us, it helps to break down our research components so that we can create more effective search strategies. I create this worksheet that might help you do that!