Q. Help! I can't find sources on my topic

Get Research Help Fast:

Individualized research help is available 24/7/365 through our Ask a Librarian chat service. Visit the Ask a Librarian page to start chatting with a librarian, contact the Research Help Desk, or schedule an appointment for a research consultation.

Find the Answer on Your Own:

We've designed a number of tutorials to support researchers at different levels and steps of the process.

For general research support, especially for undergraduate coursework, the College-level Research Tutorial.

Advanced undergraduates and some Graduate students should visit the Library Advanced Research Competencies tutorial for guidance on upper level research practices.

For help searching for sources about a specific subject or for a class, visit the Research and Course Guides page.

Search tips:

Search Using Keywords

Typing a whole question into a library search tool will not work. Instead, search using 2-3 words or phrases that represent the main concepts your researching. For example:

For the research question: How did women access health information in Medieval Europe?

My Keywords would be: Women, health information, and Medieval Europe

Once you have your starting keywords, It helps to brainstorm other terms that have a similar meaning or are closely related in order to have a variety of keywords to experiment with. As you search, write down any new terms you encounter and make note of keywords that don't work.

Combining search terms

Also known as "Boolean searching", this method allows you to search fro two concepts at once. This is done by using the  connectors: and, or, not.

• AND is most frequently used to narrow a topic. For example: searching for climate change AND agriculture would retrieve all items pertaining to both climate change and agriculture.
• OR is used to expand a topic. For example: searching for climate change OR agriculture would retrieve all items pertaining to either topic, which means you would retrieve many results about climate change that don't mention agriculture and vice versa.
• NOT is used to exclude unwanted topics. For Example: searching for climate change NOT agriculture would retrieve sources that are only about climate change excluding those results related to agriculture.

Put your terms in quotation marks "..."

Use quotation marks while searching to find results using that exact word or phrase. This can be a useful technique when you are searching for multi-word phrase. Put quotes around phrases that are 2 or more words long stops the search tool from breaking up related key words.

For example: a search using the phrase social media might return results containing the word social and other results with the word media. However, searching using "social media" (with the term in quotes) will pull up results containing to that exact phrase, recognized as a single concept.