Analysing your topic

Analyse your topic

• Look for the main idea

• Identify keywords for these concepts

• Connect your keywords with AND or OR

• Use search tips like truncation and wildcard symbols to improve search

– Spelling, different endings

Look for key concepts

• Typing the whole question or topic into the search box may not find the most relevant material

• What are the KEY concepts?

• HOT TIP : Do not use instructional words as concepts. These only tell you what to do and what type of material to look for. (e.g. “discuss”, “give examples”)

Identify keywords

• Get a clear definition of the concepts

– These definitions help identify alternative keywords

• Think of synonyms for the keywords (use textbooks, dictionaries, thesauri)

– Even if the words do not have exactly the same meaning, they still do describe similar or related concepts

Link your search words with AND or OR

• Combine synonyms with “or” – this will broaden your search

– it will look for ANY of the keywords

• Combine different concept with “and” – this will narrow your search

– It will look for all concepts together

Use truncation or wildcard symbols or phrase searching

• Truncation symbol * is useful for searching singular, plural or variations of a term– Variations of a term do not need to be repeated

– E,g. Aborigines, Aboriginal, Aborigin*

• Increasing the number of results the wildcard symbol is used – Example is a question mark?

• E.g. with different spellings e.g. organi?ation, wom?n

• Use inverted commas for phrase searches and makes the search more relevant – e.g. “tourism industry”

• decreases the number of results

Summary

• Whether you are searching the library catalogue, databases or the internet – these 4 steps will help you search more effectively

1. Look for the main concepts in the topic

2. Identify keywords for theses concepts

3. Connect your search words with AND or OR – the Boolean operators

4. Use search tips – if they are appropriate – to improve your search