Skip to Main Content
BYU-Pathway Worldwide Logo Library

CHILD 310 Child Development

Search Effectively

Unlike Google, databases can't understand an entire sentence. So you'll need to break your topic down into the most important ideas - the KEYWORDS.

Example Topic: How does sleep affect college students' mental health?

The specifics of your topic will matter when selecting sources, but for searching you only need the most essential components.

Keywords: sleep, college students, mental health

Search Query:

"college students" AND ''mental health" AND sleep

Most words have synonyms that mean the same, or very similar, things. For each keyword in your topic, try to come up with at least one synonym. Not all keywords will have synonyms, but many do!

Example:

Keyword: Mental Health

Keyword:Synonym: emotional health, mental stability

 

Keep an Eye Out

Sometimes scholars use terms that you might not be familiar with, or which might mean something very specific within the discipline. While searching, look for unfamiliar terms or words that show up a lot. Try searching for those and see if you find more relevant sources.

Most library databases have search tools built in. Try some of these:

  • Subject: Think of subjects as official hashtags. Use them to find sources about that subject.
  • Date Range: Limit your search to sources published between specific years.
  • Peer Reviewed: Your search is automatically limited to scholarly journal articles.
  • Full Text: Your search should be limited to results that are available to read in full.

Look for the FILTERS option on the search results page, or for an "advanced search" page to find these tools - and more!

You can evaluate any source using the 5 W's:

  • Who: ...wrote it? Are they an expert?
  • What: ...is the purpose of this resource?
  • Where: ...was this information published? ...does the information come from?
  • When: ...was this published or last updated?
  • Why: ...is this resource useful? ...is this resource better than other ones?

Advanced Search Tips

Using Boolean Operators

Boolean operators help to narrow or broaden your search using your keywords. The most useful boolean operators to connect your searches are: AND, OR, and NOT.

Venn diagram of the 3 types of boolean operators

 

Too Many Results?

AND finds records containing both terms. This narrows the search. For example:

  • body AND image
  • female AND appearance

 

Too Many Results?

OR finds records containing either one or both terms. This broadens the search and can also be used to account for various spellings. For example: 

  • image OR identity
  • female OR girl

 

Too Many Results?

NOT finds records containing the first term but not the second term. This narrows the search. For example: 

  • female NOT teen
  • males NOT adolescent

You can use more than one logic connector for the same search statement.

  • body image AND female NOT teen

Quotation Marks

Use quotation marks when you want to search a specific phrase. This will make your search more direct, as the database or catalog will search for your keywords in a specified order. It is a great strategy when your keyword is made up of two or more words. Our example below is body image.

"body image" → body image

body image → body image, body, image, images of the body, body conscious, body appearance, etc.

This example shows that searching the keywords "body image" without the quotation marks, returns several resources with other words that may be unrelated to your search.