ACAP Learning Resources: SIBT: Find Scholarly Sources: How to Search

Advanced Search Strategies

A basic search will work well when searching for broad topics or if you are just looking for books and ebooks. However, consider using the Advanced Search option, especially when looking for information which focuses on a specific aspect of a topic, or while searching for journal articles.

This tutorial will help you get the best out of the library’s online databases. Learn to use advanced search tools to build a search strategy, and how to adjust and refine a search to retrieve more relevant results.

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Advanced Searcing

After opening MultiSearch or one of the library's databases, you'll usually be directed to a basic search box. However, selecting a link to the Advanced Search option will provide the following attributes with which to tailor and refine your search.

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Advanced Searching Options

The search boxes provide options to construct a more focused search and adjust it more easily.

Use one box for each of the main topic areas you are looking for. In the example below, the search topics are grief and relationships and interventions. Use three boxes, one for each topic and include synonyms for each topic in that box. To include more topics, most databases allow for the addition of search boxes.

Between each search box, choose the appropriate Boolean operator to connect search terms.

In the search below, the AND operator is selected in the drop-down menus and OR operators are typed in the search boxes between synonyms. Refine the search string further by adding wildcards, truncation and phrases. For example, truncate bereavement and counselling and therapy by adding an asterisk to the word as displayed below.

Use the ‘Select a field’ drop down menus to tell the database where to look for search terms.

Adjust these fields if the search results are too limited. Also try mixing and matching across the search boxes as some fields will work better with different keywords. Below is a brief definition of some of the common fields:

Select a Field or Any Field - Will look through all sections of item records for keywords. This will deliver a larger, more comprehensive set of results.
All Text - Will look through the entire full-text of the items. This will deliver the largest set of results but they may not always be the most relevant.
Author - Use when you want to search for a particular author or theorist. Begin by just using the author's surname.
Title - Will just search through the titles of the items in the database. This will bring back a much smaller and relevant set of results.
Subject terms - Will look through the subject tags attached to each record. Again, this will retrieve a smaller more relevant list of results.
Abstract - When looking for journal articles, limiting to an abstract search will often result in a more relevant, yet comprehensive search. The abstract is the summary found at the beginning of a research article.

After selecting the search button and retrieving a results list, a Refine Results menu will appear usually down the left or right hand side of the page. This menu has built in facets with which to easily refine the results and deliver a more relevant list. A few ways of limiting the search include:

Full-text: Ticking the full-text option filters a search to resources subscribed to by the library and so, you will have immediate access. However, choose to expand the number of results by unticking this option. Note, you may then need to look for non-subscription items elsewhere or request via the interlibrary loan service.
Peer Review: If unsure about how to access only scholarly material, limit the results to just peer reviewed studies.
Date: To look at recent research and publications, limit by date from the Publication Date field.
Facets: Make use of the limiting facets produced by the database. These are based on the metadata from a results list. Subject or Thesaurus terms are often a good place to start in order to make results a little more relevant but there is often a variety of other options to choose from such as methodology, gender, age, geography, publication type and so on.