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Public Health and Education

Advanced Search Techniques

Technique to Broaden Your Search

  1. Use Asterisk (*)
    1. Automatically searches and give you results with all variations of that root word (anything before the asterisk)
    2. Example: treat* gives you results with: treat, treated, treating, treatments, etc.

Techniques to Narrow Your Search

  1. Use NOT
    1. Using it means a keyword or phrase won't show up in your results.
    2. Example: cancer NOT colon
  2. Limiting to Part of Article
    1. Using database limiters to indicate where your keyword or phrase will show up.
    2. Limit to:
      1. All fields (Broadest search)
      2. Abstract
      3. Title (Most narrow search

Google Scholar

What is Google Scholar good for?

  1. It sometimes has articles that our library databases don't have.
  2. Quickly finding an article when you know the article title
  3. Citations (auto-generated)
  4. Finding more related articles when you have a known 'good' one you want to use

 

Search Techniques (Only work in Google products, not library databases)

  1. Quotation Marks
    1. Use around short phrases to keep the phrase together as a search term
      1. Example: "mental health"
    2. Use around a single word to ensure that word shows up in results
      1. Example: "teenager"
      2. If you don't use quotation marks around a single word, that word may or may not show up in your results.
    3. You can use an unlimited amount of quotation marks however the more keywords you use in a search, the more you are narrowing your results.
  2. Minus Sign (-)
    1. Use to ensure a word doesn't show up
    2. Example: "cancer" -colon
    3. You can use an unlimited amount of minus signs however the more you use in a search, the more you are narrowing your results.
  3. intitle:
    1. Use to ensure a word or phrase shows up in the title of the article
    2. To use you must use lower case and there shouldn't be a gap between intitle: and the keyword(s) you are using
    3. Example: intitle:teenager intitle:"mental health"
    4. You can use an unlimited amount of intitle: however the more you use in a search, the more you are narrowing your results.
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