ANTH 108 Food, Drink and Culture

Design Your Advanced Searches

Follow these 3 steps to design effective searches:

  • Brainstorm search words
  • Design an effective advanced search for library databases
  • Use a similar advanced search for Google

1. FIRST, brainstorm your own search words and gather additional search words from "background info" such as encyclopedias and other reference sources

click image to enlarge:

background info article with words highlighted to show how you can pull search words from an article and then use those to construct future searches

2. NEXT, design your advanced search to use in library databases

  • To start your research, type into a database the search word(s) that describe ONE ASPECT of your topic
    • look in this guide for a list of library databases to perform your search in
  • Note that you will need to design several different searches to find info on different aspects of your topic 
    • Below is a search designed to find info on how women's body image is affected by the media.
      • You would need to design a different, modified search to find out how women's body image affects eating disorders, for example.

click image to enlarge:

image of a search design

    Option – Use quotation marks to keep a phrase together in your search:
    • “body image”
  • Option – Use AND to connect your ideas and focus your search:
    • "body image" AND women
  • Option -  In the same box, use OR to expand your search to synonyms or related ideas:
    • women OR girls
  • Additional Option – Use an asterisk to find word variations:
    • Example     advertis*     finds advertise, advertisements, advertising

3. FINALLY, design your advanced search to use in search engines like Google

 

click image to enlarge:Google search design

  • Option – Use quotation marks to keep a phrase together in your search:
    • “body image”
  • Option – Use AND to connect your ideas and focus your search:
    • "body image" AND women
  • Option -  In the same box, use OR to expand your search to synonyms or related ideas:
    • women OR girls
  • Note: – By default, Google should find word variations
    • Example     advertise finds advertisements, advertising

Background Info

Learn about your topic and glean new search words:

Video: How to Use Keywords to Form a Research Strategy

Source: "From topic to search results in two minutes! " by Holman Library is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Learn about strategizing keywords and how databases work when searching keywords.