RESEARCH FOUNDATIONS
5 Practical Search Strategies
Kathleen DeLaurenti and Andrea I. Copland
Searching
Now we’re ready to search. To decide where to start, look at your research mind map and decide what kinds of sources will help answer your questions. As a reminder, these can include:
- Primary sources: diaries, autobiographies, archival manuscripts, news reports, social media
- Secondary sources: scholarly books and articles that demonstrate applications of specific methodologies or frameworks related to your questions
- Tertiary sources: subject-specific encyclopedias and indexes to help you expand your background knowledge in areas related to your topic
Once you know specifically what kinds of information sources to look for, you can map them to the search tools we discussed. One way to do this is to build a search tool planner to map which search tools you want to use and how to prioritize them. An example is provided below in Table 5-1.
| Type of Source | Information Resources | Search Tool 1 | Search Tool 2 |
| Primary | Diaries | Local library catalog | WorldCat |
| Archival manuscript | Archival collections | ||
| Newspaper reports | Newspaper database | Music Index | |
| Secondary | Scholarly article or ethnographic studies | Multidisciplinary database (e.g., JSTOR) | Google Scholar |
| Scholarly article or musical analyses | RILM | ||
| Tertiary | Encyclopedia of folktales | Local library catalog |
5-1. Dig Deeper
Turning Mind Maps into Searches
Once you’ve chosen a search tool to start with, pull together your search tool planner and research mind map to start your search.
Here are some tips and tricks to maximize using your search terms effectively. Remember, a library catalog is not going to be good at answering your questions directly. You may need to do some translating to get effective results.
Search Operators
Table 5-2 below shares some common ways to use syntax, or grammatical operators, to make your searches more precise.
| Operator | Function | Result | Example |
| AND | Used between terms, it requires the search tool to include both terms. | Narrows your search | myth AND music |
| OR | Used between terms, it requires the search tool to treat the terms as synonyms. | Expands your search | folk tale OR myth |
| NOT | Used before a term, it excludes results that use that term. (Note: Instead of NOT, you must use a – [minus sign] in Google.) | Increases precision of your search | folk tale NOT myth folk tale -myth |
| ” “ | Used to enclose a phrase, it tells the search engine to search multiple words as one word. | Narrows your search | “folktale” |
| * | Use the asterisk as a wild card. | Expands your search | myth* for myth, myths, mythological |
Google-specific Search Operators
Table 5.3 below highlights Google-specific operators to make your searches more precise.
| Operator | Function | Result | Example |
|
define: |
Before a term, provides a definition with a source | Provides definitions | define: myth |
|
site: |
Befor