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BIO 3352 & 4351: Research Methods in Biology: Searching Tips

Searching in Databases Tips

Search Terms

  • Keywords--You do not need to use all of your keywords or search terms in every search, especially if you come up with too few results 
  • Related Terms--Create a list of related terms to your keywords that you can use by in case you do not find the results that you want by using your first keywords. You can make this list by consulting the database thesaurus or a General Thesaurus. See Using the Right Terms   

Searching

  • One Search--Do not expect to find all of your resources after one search.  When doing research a database, you may need to perform several searches trying different combinations of terms before coming up with a list of good results.
  • Perform Many Searches--More than likely, you will have to perform many searches in many different databases before you will have a complete list of useful relevant resources.
  • What is a successful search?   It is when you find at least one resource that you can use
  • Exact Match Not Needed--When searching for results in databases, you do not need to find resources that are exactly like your research proposal, they just have to be similar to it in some way.
  • Many Search Features--Databases contain a host of search features, including limiters, expanders, and search modes. Changing any of them can change your results. See Search Modes, Expanders, and Limiters
  • Look in Bibliography--One way to find additional relevant results is to look at the bibliography or references of an already useful article. See Chaining, and Search Modes
  • Literature Review--Another way to find additional relevant results is to search for literature review articles. See Finding Reviews of the Literature

Limiting Your Search

  • Limiting to available articles--Do not limit your searching to just articles that are available in the database (PDF or HTML Full Text). You probably will need to access at least some of your articles from other libraries through InterLibrary Loan
  • Limiting to Scholarly articles--You will probably want to limit your search results to Scholarly/Peer Reviewed journals because they contain the results of research. See Limiters 

Results

  • Changing Results Order--Many databases allow you to change the order of the records retrieved. Click on the link above the results list to select one of the sorting options: Date Newest, Date Oldest, Author, Source, or Relevance. If you are searching more than one database at the same time, only the sort options common to all the databases that you selected will be available.