Search Strategies to Find Journal Articles and Save Time

Search Strategies to Find Journal Articles and Save Time

Search for a Person:

Example of a Keyword Search: Lincoln, Abraham; Da Vinci, Leonardo. *Always  search names in this order: last name, first. (Keyword is usually the default search).

Example of an Author Search: Choose "Author" search from the drop down search box and enter the author's name. Example: Twain, Mark; Morrison, Toni.

Search for a Topic or Concept:

Choose the Keyword search. Search the keywords separated by the words AND, OR or NOT.  AND, OR, or NOT will narrow or expand your returns or numbers of journal articles found. 

Using AND in the Keyword Search:

AND will narrow the returns because each journal article must contain all of the keyword concepts. 
AND search examples:
To find articles on:
Leonardo Da Vinci's painting The Last Supper= Da Vinci, Leonardo AND "Last Supper"
Leonardo Da Vinci and how he is represented in the book The Da Vinci Code= Da Vinci, Leonardo AND "Da Vinci Code".
For a biography on Leonardo Da Vinci.= Da Vinci, Leonardo AND Biography.
For Renaissance painting in Italy.= Painting AND Renaissance AND Italy.
For how-to techniques on painting with oil paints.=Painting AND Oil AND Technique.

Using OR in the Keyword Search:

OR will expand the returns because either keyword can be included in the topic of the journal article, but not necessarily both keywords in the same journal article. OR search examples:  Da Vinci, Leonardo OR "Da Vinci Code"; Da Vinci, Leonardo OR Biography OR Life OR Notebooks.

Using NOT in the Keyword Search:

all journal articles that have that concept from the returns.

Narrowing a More Involved Search:

It is usually best to slowly add keywords separated by AND, OR, and NOT to narrow your topic until you get the most relevant returns. When we slowly add our keywords one at a time to our search it becomes more relevant and cuts down the number of results or journal articles we must read.  Each time another keyword is added to the search string, separated by the word "AND", it eliminates the journal articles that do not have anything about the new keyword in its record.

Search Topic Example:
How nutritious are genetically engineered food crops?

Keyword Search terms= Nutrition AND Genetic AND Engineering AND Crops

Each additional word was slowly added to the search and the number of journal articles returned evaluated. The example below shows the amount of returns or journal articles as each new keyword is added:

= 109,585 journal articles

= 4,522 journal articles

= 379 journal articles

= 42 journal article