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Session 2 - 6/16/2020 - Introduction to the Research Process
Helpful Files From Today's Instruction Session
Helpful Links from Today's Instruction Session
Find background information on your topic by using reference databases like...
Search everything MU Libraries has access to with...
Find specialized research on business-related topics using...
Not getting the results that you want?
Click on the following tabs to find helpful suggestions for improving your search results!
What if I have too many results? Try narrowing your search!
All database records have subject terms that describe the resource. Subject terms can help you add additional keywords.
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Choose narrower search terms
broader search: tourism
narrower search: global tourism
Using field, content type, publication date, scholarly and peer reviewed, and/or full text online will narrow your search.
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Search for a short phrase with quotation marks
Putting quotation marks around a short phrase is a great way to narrow your search. When searching for the phrase social media, results include all resources with the word social and all resources with the word media. Searching for "social media" only returns results that have the entire phrase.
What if I have too few results? Try broadening your search!
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Are you using the right search terms?
Try related terms (you can find these by using a thesaurus or by looking at the subject terms included in each record in every database.
Don't include unnecessary words when searching. Focus on key concepts.
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Is your topic too narrow?
Instead of rural high school students try high school students. Instead of Huntington, West Virginia try West Virginia.
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Are you using the right database?
Does the database you are using have resources from your discipline?
What else can I do to improve my search?
Most library databases (and our library catalog) use the Boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT which are used to combine concepts and broaden or narrow your search.
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AND searches for both terms and narrows your search results.
Searching for: climate change AND tourism will only return results that contain both terms.
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OR searches for records that use either term and broaden your results.
Searching for: United States OR U.S.A. OR u.s. OR America is going to give you more results than using only one of these terms since all are used and acceptable.
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NOT excludes terms from your search and narrows your results.
Searching for: climate change AND tourism NOT (United States OR U.S.A. OR u.s. OR America) will narrow your results.
Note: Use NOT with caution as it could exclude results that you could otherwise want.