Research Guides: AGST/PLSC130 Did Yeast Create Civilization?: Search Tips

Search Tips

Search Tips:

Create a list of searchable keywords. Add keywords listed in relevant articles to this list.
Wikipedia can be a good way to gain some quick background information on a topic you are unfamiliar with. Then, use the details you learned to find additional sources from UMD Libraries that you can cite.
Keep track of your search strings. Many databases will show you your search history, and even let you save searches!
If you find relevant references in an article, look them up by title in Google Scholar and read that article for more information.
- This goes for news articles too. If they mention a report or scholarly article, try to find that original document. There may be more information in there that is relevant to your research!
Web of Science and Google Scholar will let you see if another article has cited the article you're reading.
If you are struggling access an article's full text try using the Reload Button

Keyword Searching:

When searching in UMD Libraries resources, you will want to enter combinations of keywords. See the example below:

Concept 1: Fermentation

fermentation
zymological process
anaerobic digestion

Concept 2: Dairy Products

dairy
yogurt
cheese
milk
kefir

Search strategy example:
(fermentation OR "zymological process*") AND (dairy OR yogurt OR cheese* OR milk OR kefir)

Quotes around a phrase = tells a database/search engine to look for that exact phrase
"anaerobic digestion"
"lactic acid"
"carbon dioxide"

* at the end of the word to retrieve all the variations (or the middle for spelling variants)

Examples:

dair* = dairy OR dairies OR dairying
ferment* = ferment OR fermentation OR fermented OR fermenting OR ferment
pickl* = pickle OR pickles OR pickling
sterili*e = sterilize or sterilise

Note: Be careful where you add the asterisk. For the example , when searching community if the asterisk is added at commun* you might get communications or communism.

Combine word/s using connectors

or: either term/s are included (to connect synonyms or like concepts)

Example: yogurt OR yoghurt OR yogourt OR yoghourt

and: all terms must be included (to connect concepts)

Example: fermentation AND pickl*

Searching Tips

Searching techniques to limit or expand your results

Boolean search	AND OR NOT	Find all the words Find any of the words Find documents which have the first word, but not the second word	internet AND education internet OR intranet internet NOT html
Phrase search	"..."	Search for an exact phrase by using quotes around the phrase	"environmental health"
Truncation	*	Find all forms of a word - the asterisk * is used as a right-handed truncation character only.	Searching for econom* will find "economy", "economics", "economical", etc.
Wildcard	?	Replace any single character, either inside the word or the right end of the word. ? cannot be used to begin a word.	Searching for wom?n will find "woman" and "women."

Keywords/synonyms

It is important to realize that if you search a database with a certain word or phrase and you don't retrieve results to your liking, it doesn't mean that there are no other articles in that database on your topic. It may mean that you need to try other related words in your search, such as synonyms. For example, try automobile or auto instead of car.