Identifying key concepts and what other words or phrases describe that concept you will get more meaningful results. Here is an example of how you can break down a question into concepts and their related phrases.
| Original Phrase | Related words or ideas |
|---|---|
| eyewitness testimony | eyewitness identification/misidentification, false testimony, police lineup, eyewitness errors, lineup identification, eyewitness evidence, eyewitness memory |
| wrongful conviction | innocence, false imprisonment, exoneration, false arrest, wrongful incarceration, criminal justice errors |
| how often | statistics, data, history, frequency, extent |
When you perform a database search, often you will be given a lot of results -more than you could ever go through. When this happens, it's important to tell the database exactly what kind of resources your looking for by applying filters.
Filters (sometimes called limiters) help take away search results you don't want. You can filter by type and date.
Type - Each of these filters helps to make sure that the kinds of results your search gives you are appropriate for research.
Date - These filters limit your results according to when they were published.
AND - Finds all the words
OR - Finds either of the words
NOT - Excludes a word from search
One thing students struggle with is finding too much irrelevant information in the databases. This is because of one very specific problem: computers are literal. They will search for your words wherever they can, which means you might get a result that uses your words in a different context.
One way you can help them understand you is to use quotation marks in your search to ensure the database or search engine looks for those words together as a phrase. Be on the lookout for words that provide a specific meaning the word it comes before to after.
| Words with Multiple Contexts | Words that Describe Previous Word | Type in search box, In quotes |
|---|---|---|
| school | high, elementary, charter | "charter school" |
| games | Olympic, video, board | "video games" |
| tiger | cat, Woods, king, Detroit | "Tiger Woods" |
