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BIOL 3131 - Physiology: Get Started

Keyword Searching

For effective searching, DO NOT use sentence structure, such as your thesis statement or research question. 

Instead, use a keyword or keyword phrase to search library resources (Catalog, Databases) and web search engines (Google and Google Scholar) and locate results matching that word/s in a specified part (title, abstract, full-text) of the item. Once you have identified your key search concepts, start brainstorming some related terms (synonyms) to your key concepts.

Use a general thesaurus, subject dictionaries and encyclopedias, your syllabus, professor's notes, and subject headings to help you formulate keywords. 

 

Diagram of Research Process for identifying search terms 

Use the worksheet provided to help guide you through developing keyword search concepts from your research question. 

More Tips:

More Tips

Take Notes! 

Do the same search more than once!

Notice Author Names, Journal Titles, Databases, of ANY sources that look promising. (Remember, the databases help you with this!)

Use the References of a source to help you find additional sources! If you need help going from a citation to a source in hand, ASK!!

Use the Cited BY, or Times Cited in this Database to find more current articles than the one you found. 

Learn to set up Alerts. You can set up Alerts for Specific Journals, Specific Articles, and also Search Alerts! 

Welcome to the Research Guide for BIOL3131 - Principles of Physiology.  This guide has been specifically created to help you be successful in navigating resources for your Physiology Class!  Use the tabs to go specifically to the help you need. This guide will be available the duration of the semester, and is accessible from any computer or mobile device. 

Develop Your Search Strategy

Developing an effective search strategy involves:

  • Identifyng the key search concepts
  • Identifying related terms to the key search concepts
  • Using standard search structures to broaden and narrow your search results

While there is not ONE right way to do a search, the strategies identified here will improve your results!

Limiting and Expanding Your Search Using And, Or, Not...

Boolean searching involves adding or subtracting terms to your search to either broaden or narrow your search. It uses three terms (AND, OR, NOT) to tell the search engine or database whether to include or eliminate certain terms.                                  

 

                                                                                                                            Set of Ven Diagrams showing the relationship between Boolean Operators AND, OR, and NOT as used in a literature search query                                                

Targeting Your Search Using Quotation Marks...

Quotation Marks can be used to identify Phrases.

By using quotations marks, you can tell the computer to only bring back pages with the terms you typed in the exact order you typed them.

"climate change"

Instead of 

climate AND change

 

"expansive soil" 

Instead of 

expansive AND soil

 

Expanding Your Search Using Truncation...

Truncation allows you to search various forms of a word by finding alternative endings. The characher (*) is placed at the end of the first few letters of a search term or at the end of its root.

Ethic* retrieves

Ethics

Ethical

Ethically

Subjects: Biology