Research involves analyzing your topic and then searching in an electronic database, a print index, and/or the Web. Only the mechanics--how you actually do it--will differ in each case.

Before doing your search, identify the topic and what concepts it involves. Then think of terms that will retrieve the search results--that is, “hits”--for those concepts. You can then type up the search statement, run the search, and analyze the results.

Here are the steps:

1. Identify the overall topic

2. Identify and list the concept(s) for the topic

3. Identify and list the terms for each concept

4. Create the search statement

5. Identify resource(s) and run the search

6. Analyze the results.

Let's apply these steps to the following example.

1. Identify the topic

• The overall topic is health risks (either increased or decreased) associated with having diabetes, in various age groups.

2. Identify and list the concept(s) for the topic

• The three concepts involved are "Disease" and “Risks associated with disease” and “Age populations”.

3. Identify and list the terms for each concept

• Now think of terms for these concepts. (Other names for these terms are subject terms, key words, and subject headings.)
• Think of some possible risks of such as diabetes or heart disease.
• Also, identify the age populations involved.
• You can put the terms into a table with the concepts at the top of columns and the terms below them. In the case of our example, the table would be:

The example in this case is simple. You can create a larger table by adding more concepts and terms as needed.

4. Create the search statement

• In creating a search statement, consider using the “Boolean logic” terms “and” and “or”.
• Use “or” if you want to find all items containing one, or the other, or both of two terms. For example, “cats or dogs” finds hits where at least one of the two concepts appear.
• Use “and” to find the intersection of two sets. So “cats and dogs” finds hits where both cats and dogs are mentioned.
• A possible search statement for our topic is:

diabetes and (heart disease or prostate cancer) and (middle-aged or senior)

5. Identify resource(s) and run the search

Librarians can help you with this plus help you with the mechanics of searching.

6. Analyze the results.

After running the search, look over the results for quality and quantity. A good search often has 25 to 50 references (“hits”), that is, a manageable set. You may decide that you have too many or too few results. If so, the next section may help you.

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If you have too many results, there are many ways to “limit” the search, that is, cut down the number of results.

1. Look over the search results. Maybe you are interested in how the risks associated with having diabetes contribute to insurance costs. You can add the term "economic aspects" into the search as a way of limiting the search results.

diabetes and (heart disease or prostate cancer) and (middle-aged or senior) and (economic aspects)

Because you have added, using “and”, additional terms that must be present (youth or young)), every hit must now—in addition to satisfy not only the search criteria "diabetes and (heart disease or prostate cancer) and (middle-aged or senior)" but they must also contain the term "economic aspects". This may greatly reduce the number of hits.

2. You can take out terms. For example, you can leave out "heart disease" and search

diabetes and prostate cancer and (middle-aged or senior) and (economic aspects)

3. You can also use “limiters” that the database provides for date ranges, publication types, and languages. Some databases list the limiters in pull-down menus; for others, check the help files for the database. Still others are database specific. For instance, PsycInfo can limit searches to certain age groups; Historical Abstracts can restrict by time period (historical era instead of date of publication).

 

You can

• If you obtained too few hits, you can add terms to get more results. Maybe theater groups would want to use the facilities, and you might want to open up the geographic coverage by searching for Lehigh Valley as well as specific towns in it:
• (sales or music lessons or theater groups) and (Bethlehem or Hellertown or Lehigh Valley)
• One way to expand a search is to examine the results of your first search. This lets you see what subject terms appear in good hits.

 

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1/31/05

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