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Fullerton College Library

English 100 Schulze/Ream (April 13, 2023)

A research guide designed to support Prof. Schulze's English 100 class that met for a library instruction session on 4-13-23.

Developing a Search Strategy

1) Start with a general subject or topic

Example: fashion industry

2) Narrow your topic and move towards the specific

Example: (General Topic) fashion industry

(Specific Topic) the fashion industry and racial stereotypes

3) Turn your topic into a research question

Example: How does the fashion industry use racial stereotypes for marketing purposes?

4) Come up with keywords, phrases and synonyms on your topic

Example: 

  • fashion, fashion industry, clothing
  • racial stereotypes, racism
  • marketing, branding, advertising

5) Test out and experiment with your keywords in OneSearch. Use the results to locate other keywords and subject terms that will help narrow your search and increase accuracy. 

6) Try revised searches until you're satisfied with the results. Depending on the number of results, consider narrowing or broadening your topic. 

The terms AND and OR are used in databases to link keywords and concepts together and form more logical, accurate searches.   

These terms are particularly useful when we are getting either too many or too few results from a database search. 

The term AND is used to narrow a search and retrieve a more specific set of results.

The term OR is used to broaden a search and retrieve a wider set of results.

Most library databases have an Advanced Search option (see example below) that allows you to construct searches using these terms.

 

Library databases contain numerous built-in tools that help us to limit the number and types of results we are retrieving from our searches. Below are just a few examples of the more commonly used search limiters.  

1) The Publication Date slider will limit your search results to a specific time period.

NOTE: The date range you enter will depend on the assignment instructions provided by your professor.

2) Use the Peer Reviewed check box to limit your search to only scholarly, peer reviewed journals.

1) Use truncation (*) to broaden your search to cover variations in keywords

Example: Entering the term advertis* will automatically search for advertise, advertisements and all other variations of the term

2) Use subject terms to limit your search to materials classified under terms provided by the database. 

Example: Selecting the term Fashion advertising will retrieve all of the articles from the database that are classified under this term.