HUM 310: Opioid Crisis

In-Class Activity

1. Open the Improving on Your Search Success form for this activity.
2. Open Social Science Premium Collection. It should open in another window/tab from this link.
3. Follow search instructions in the Google Form and answer the questions as you go. Use your own research topic/question.
4. If you get stuck or have questions, please ask Jayne for help!

Use Advanced Search Tools and Strategies

Here are a few ways to make your results more relevant to your topic. You don't have to memorize them; they are always described in a database's Help pages!

Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) 

• AND - use to combine two different concepts/terms; narrows results to only those with both terms
• OR - use to find synonyms/related terms; broadens results to anything with either term
• NOT - use to exclude an alternative/undesired term or concept; narrows results to those without the term

Phrase searching (quotation marks)

• use to search a multi-worded concept/term; excludes any results where one of the words appears without the others in the phrase

Search nesting (parentheses)

• use to tell the computer how to search; results should be more relevant and may be broader or narrower

Thesaurus/Subject List

• use to find related and standardized terms employed by the database to categorize concepts/terms (AKA controlled language)