Leadership - Capstone Research Project - 12th Grade: Search Strategies for Serious Researchers

Search Strategies for Serious Researchers

1. Imagine your dream document
   1. What could you use to write a great paper? What type of information are you looking for?

2. What are the words the industry uses?
   1. Word cloud on subject
   2. Tweets – what are people saying about the subject? Is it an I, me, person experience
   3. Tweets are Primary sources – contact the person – set up an interview - online

3. Search by file type
   1. Search PDF – this will be a large amount of information – think big paper – big research

4. Pearl Growing! Saves Time!
   1. Find a Killer article.
      1. Take anything from the document to grow your search
         1. References
         2. Author

Use the Killer article to find similar sources

2.    Spend time with your results
   1. Read abstract
   2. Look at people’s names / authors
   3. Look at subjects.

           Your Grow Your Pearl!

5. Mining Bibliography
   1. Find articles listed in the Bibliography
   2. Look at what else the author has written
   3. Scan through titles – use the terms in the titles

Citation Chaining Snowball!

                     Use Google Scholar

    Cited by – see how many people cited the article in their research.

                     Journal Run – Find a journal that keeps being mentioned. –

                           Find journal and browse issues /themes in that journal on your topic.

6. Leveraging Controlled Vocabulary
   1. Subject headings - what are the subjects used the databases?
   2. Use advanced search tools – databases
   3. Use a Thesaurus – find the right name for your topic
   4. Differentiate your search terms

7. Use your Peripheral Vision
   1. Look around for keywords
   2. Synonyms
   3. Jargon
   4. Related issues / topics

8. Proximity
   1. What words are near each other, but not phrases?
   2. Building blocks
   3. Can’t live without it terms

9. Author searches
   1. Find authors who keep writing about the topic – expert in field
   2. Search the authors name with the topic.

10. What sources can you use to search? Free sources or Databases?

        Databases - have value – vested, costly/paid, editor

1. Think Primary sources
2. JSTOR – college level database

       Free Internet - has original research and can find primary sources.

            Google Scholar

LibGuides – you can search LibGuides on specific topics from University Libraries. There is also a LibGuide Community - LibGuide.com

Google Books – find information from the pages that are free. Use the table of contents – look at keywords.

When using databases or websites use Boolean Searching to broaden or narrow your search.

Phrases
Use quotation marks to search for exact phrases
example "George Washington"

Truncation

• Truncation is represented by an asterisk (*)
• Enter the root of a search term and replace the ending with an *
• Ex: comput* finds results with computer, computing, computation, computational, etc.
• Truncation can also be used between words (ex: a midsummer * dream will return results that contain the exact phrase, “a midsummer night’s dream”)
   

Wildcards

• A wildcard is represented by a question mark (?) or a pound sign (#)
• Using ? as a wildcard will only return results in which the wildcard is replaced by another character (ex: ne?t will find results containing neat, nest or next, but it will not find results with net)
• Using # as a wildcard will return results with or without an extra character (ex: ne#t will find results containing neat, nest, or next as well as results containing net)

adapted from Binghamtom University, 2018 https://libraryguides.binghamton.edu/libraryresearch/search