Libguide for "This Course is Out To Get You": 2)Books

Keywords

Whenever you start searching for information, you begin your process by developing keywords, also called search terms. Keywords are words or phrases that you develop yourself to describe what you are researching. Consider keywords to be your topic condensed. Think about what makes up the core elements of your topic, and describe them as concisely as possible.

The specificity of your keywords may impact the sorts of results that you receive:

•  If you aren't finding enough results, try broadening your keywords
  • E.g., Change "dog" to "dachshund"
• If you are finding too few results, then try using broader terms
  • E.g., change "wire-haired miniature dachshund" to "miniature dachshund" or "wire-haired dachshund' or just "dachshund"

Of course, there is also some degree of craft/artistry involved in selecting keywords. Simply shifting your words to be broader or narrower won't work for every source. For example, if you are researching the prestige of the Rolls Royce Phantom or the Birkin bag, then broadening your search to just "car" or "purse" won't give you the most precise results. After all, those searches will give you information on used minivans from 2007 and knock-off purses--both of which are valid results for the keywords of "car" and "purse" respectively, but don't fulfill the brief of "prestige". Instead, you may want to search for "luxury car" or "Rolls Royce" for the Phantom, and "luxury purse" or "Hermès" for the Birkin.

Boolean Operators

Eventually, you will want to combine your keywords. After all, if you're researching the origins of the dachshund, then the term "dachshund" will only take you so far. You would want to use it in combination with terms like "history" or "origin". You would combine your keywords using a thing called a Boolean Operator.

Boolean Operators are words, typed in all caps, that search engines use to determine which sources meet your exact specifications. The three words most common are AND, OR, and NOT.

• AND is used when you are combining two different keywords together. E.g.: "conspiracy theory" AND "social networks"
  • This will narrow your search to results that MUST include both keywords. So all of your results would involve both the term "conspiracy theory" and the word "social networks". 
• OR is used to show that two terms can be used interchangeably. E.g.: "college" OR "university"
  • This will broaden your results to include results that include one word but not the other and results that include both words.
• NOT is used to tell your search engine that you do not want to see results that include the keyword used after the operator NOT. For example:
  • "Mean Girls" NOT "Musical" will exclude results about the Mean Girls musical, but should still keep results about the original (nonmusical) film.
  • You will use NOT when you notice a recurring pattern in your search that you want to weed out. For this class, you may want to use NOT to weed out fiction books/novels.

Punctuation

Punctuation is used to tell your search engine or database to separate phrases, define conditions, and indicate if you searching for an exact match in your search. You will most often use parentheses and quotation marks.

• Parentheses:
  • You will use parentheses primarily to define conditions. Think of this as an extension to the order of operations.
  • This can be used when your search has layers to it. For example, if you are researching dogs that either black or yellow, you may want to separate these terms out by doing the following search: (black OR yellow) AND (dogs)
    • This search lets your search engine know that you definitely want to look for dogs, but you're ok with the dogs being either black or yellow. You've defined a condition by stating that the one constant (dogs) can be one of two colors (black or yellow)
• Quotaton Marks
  • Some databases will let you use quotation marks to indicate that your results need to include the exact phrase enclosed within them. This can be important if your search may be the root word for different phrases, as a search for (revolution) may end up showing you results for revolutionary. If you're researching a revolution in the art scene, this may not matter, but if you're referring to governmental revolutions, this change of term can severely impact your search. You can "lock" your keyword by enclosing it in quotation marks (e.g., "revolution"). 
  • Quotes can also be used to make phrases act as a singular keyword. For example, if you are researching fashion in the French Revolution, you'll want to let your search engine know that French Revolution is one keyword. Otherwise, you may find results just about French fashion or fashion from some other revolution (or revolutionary fashion). You can do this by enclosing French Revolution in quotes, making your search: fashion AND "French Revolution"

The Catalog will point you to primary source documents held in the Library's "Special Collections." Search for a term, like Unidentified Flying Object* and limit to Special Collections in the left side filters.

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