Search Strategy Process

1.  Choose a database through the Subject listing under Electronic Databases:

2.  Use keywords(s) to lead to a useful record. What words do you expect to find in an article on your topic? For example, if you are looking for obituaries, you would expect to find the words "lived", "survived by" and a person'a family name. The term obituary would not be expected to be found in an actual obituary.

3.  Are you satisfied with the number of citations (hits); your search retrieved?

• If too many hits occur, use limiters such as date ranges to retrieve fewer citations. Or, use "and" between terms, instructing the search engine to return hits with both terms included.
• If too few hits occur, use "or" between search terms and no limiters to instruct the search engine to broaden the scope to include either term in the results.

4.  Evaluate citations:

• Choose to sort the citation or results list to make it most useful to you. Usual choices are between sorting by relevance or by publication date. Relevancy is based on either where in the article the search term is found or how often it is used in the article. Usually search terms in the title of an article are considered to be more relevant than search terms found in the body of the text. Determine if the currency of the article is important to you. If so, sort results according to the most current date of publication.
• Are words in the title or abstract (summary) fields important to your needs?
• Is the source of an article known to you from your research
• Is the author of an article a known expert in your subject area?

5. Re-do the search using descriptors or controlled vocabulary terms that are found in the records retrieved by your search.

Through this process, you can expect to receive a listing of records highly relevant to your needs.