This page provides information and support that will help you develop skills for searching for information.
Searching for information includes:
Before you begin your search, it's a good idea to consider the following:
In order to plan your search, it's a good idea to consider the following:
Type of assessment
Assessments can vary from a short 5 minute presentation to a technical report, literature review, or thesis. The type of assignment you are asked to produce will have a direct effect on:
|
How much information do you need?
Consider:
|
Where will you find your information?
Each information source contains different types of information.
Working out which to use before you start looking will save a lot of time.
Understanding your assignment question is an important first step in getting started with planning keywords to use for your search. It may sound simple, but it is crucial that you understand your assignment questions- misinterpreting what the question is asking you to do will waste time as you may use different search terms based on the question.
Consider the following:
|
Working out your main themes helps you to define your topic and work out exactly what your tutor is asking you to do, rather than just generally discussing the subject.
Once you've finished doing your background reading, perhaps from recommended books on your reading list, or your lecture notes, consider what you know.
One way of doing this would be to use a Mind Map. Mapping your ideas sharpens the focus of your assignment and helps you to choose search terms and keywords when you begin searching for information. It can also reveal gaps in your knowledge and areas where you need to do more background reading.
Try not to spend too much time organising the material. It is more important to record all your ideas.
When you use and enter certain words into your keyword search known as Boolean operators, you are telling the computer exactly how to perform a search- one that can be tailored to your specific needs.
The most commonly used Boolean operators are: AND, OR, and NOT.
Tip: it is good practice to capitalise search operators as some databases require this.
The wild card is usually represented by a question mark (?) which replaces one character only e.g. ne?t will find all citations containing neat, nest or next (but not net because one character must be replaced).
Truncation is usually represented by an asterisk (*) which replaces any number of characters. Enter the root of a word and replace the ending with a *
Take care not to truncate too soon e.g. Comp* finds not only computers and computing, but also company, companies, component, comparison etc.
Warning Try not to overuse truncation as you may overload the search engine and return an error message! Some databases will only allow limited use of the * symbol.
Proximity searching allows you to locate one word within a certain distance of another. The symbols generally used in this type of search are w and n.
The w represents the word "with(in)" and the n represents the word "near." This type of search is not available in all databases.
Near Operator (Nx) — finds words within x number of words from each other, regardless of the order in which they occur.
Example: television n2 violence would find "television violence" or "violence on television," but not "television may be the culprit in recent high school violence."
Within Operator (Wx) — finds words within x number of words from each other, in the order they are entered in the search.
Example: Winston w2 Churchill would find Winston Churchill or Winston S. Churchill, but would not find Churchill Winston.
If you want to search for a term, phrase, or exact match, you will need to use quotation marks around the words. This will narrow your results down. For example, a search of "social work" rather than social work will exclude results where the terms "social" and "work" appear disconnected from each other.
Too many results? Try focusing the search field to words in title.
Too few results? Try broadening your scope by searching for words within the full-text of the articles. This is particularly useful if you are looking for a more obscure word or phrase.
Search Example: Is there a link between childrens’ diet and behaviour?
diet* OR nutrition* OR food* OR meal* OR eat* |
Select a search field |
|
AND |
child* OR infan* OR “early years” |
Select a search field |
AND |
behaviour* OR behavior* |
Select a search field |
Or, if there is only one search box available:
(diet* OR nutrition* OR food* OR meal* OR eat*) AND (child* OR infan* OR “early years”) AND (behaviour* OR behavior*) |
Search Example: Explore the reasons why university students are becoming more stressed
stress* OR burnout OR “burn out” OR pressur* |
Select a search field |
|
AND |
student* OR undergraduate* OR postgraduate* |
Select a search field |
AND |
universit* OR “higher education” |
Select a search field |
After thinking about the topic area you are planning to search and deciding what keywords may be useful, it is also a good idea to find alternative search words.
Alternative search words can be found by:
Synonyms – “like” words
Firstly try using the most obvious search words. Then try to think of synonyms or “like” words that might also be used e.g.
Children – try also child, infants, toddlers, pre-school or “early years”
Change – try also transitions, development, trends , emerging, shakeup, reform, modification, innovation, progress etc.
Antonyms – “opposite” words
Occasionally you will find useful information by using search words that have opposite meaning s eg:
The UWC Library subscribes to many databases, giving you access to millions of journal articles, images, books, technical reports, dissertations, videos, and more.
Our core databases for law are:
University of the Western Cape,
Robert Sobukwe Road,
Bellville,
7535
Tel: 021 959 2946