Searching for academic literature can be time-consuming. The search becomes more efficient when you use various search techniques and know which sources are available.
Be as clear as possible about what you are looking for before you start searching. Write down relevant search terms and find synonyms. Use your curriculum, dictionaries, and encyclopedias to quickly get an overview of the topic and to find precise search terms.
Search techniques
Truncating
By truncating, you search for the stem of a word to include various endings of the word. The truncation symbol is usually an asterisk (*). For example, math* will yield results for mathematics, mathematical, mathematician etc.
Phrase search
If you search for a term consisting of multiple words, such as higher education, you can enclose the phrase in quotation marks: "higher education". This way, you search for the exact phrase "higher education" and not higher and education as separate words.
Boolean operatorer: AND, OR and NOT
In most databases, you can combine search terms in three different ways: with AND, OR, and NOT. This is called searching with Boolean operators.
AND
When two search terms are combined with AND, you will only get hits for literature in which both terms are used in the reference. Combinations with AND targets the search, and limits the number of hits.
Example: A search for Diabetes AND "Quality of life" only results in literature in which both the terms diabetes and quality of life are used.
OR
When you combine two search terms with OR, the search engine will retrieve hits for literature in which either or both search terms are used. Combinations with OR broaden the search and increase your number of hits. OR is used between synonymous or related search terms.
Example: A search for Diabetes OR Hyperglycemia gives hits for documents containing either diabetes, or hyperglycemia, or both.
NOT
When you combine two keywords with NOT, you will get hits for documents in which the first search term is used, while the search will omit documents in which the second search term is used. Use the operator with caution, as combinations with NOT can potentially exclude relevant documents.
Example: A search for Diabetes NOT Geriatrics will result in literature in which the term diabetes is used, but the search will omit all literature that uses the term geriatrics.
The text is from the Search and Write, developed by Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, University of Bergen, and University of Oslo. You can learn more about search techniques, how to plan a search, and how to search systematically on their website.
