Use Keywords to search - not sentences!
Keywords are the most important words in your topic.
Example topic: Do video games make teenagers violent?
Keywords:
Wait, there's more. Try the following techniques to make your searches even more dynamic!
Phrase Searches
Often keywords are more than one word. Most search engines let you put quotation marks around these so only results with the exact phrase are listed.
"rap music"
"cell phone"
Truncation
Shortening a keyword to its basic root and adding a special character (usually an asterisk "*" or "?") at the end will tell the computer to search for variations on the word.
Searching for politic* will find:
Politics, Political, Politician
**Note: Check the search engine help screens to see if this can be done. It's most common on subscription databases.
Parentheses
Combines concepts and techniques. The search engine will search for what's grouped or nested inside the parentheses first.
("rap music" OR "hip hop") AND censorship
You can combine keywords using AND, OR, NOT:
AND gets more specific results because all the words must be on a web page. Some search engines (like Google) automatically insert AND between words, but it doesn't hurt for you to put it there.
OR allows you to search for synonyms or word variations in one search. Often there are other words that mean the same as your keyword. OR searchers for these variations at the same time.
NOT eliminates unwanted words. This prevents useless sites from showing in your searches.