Use ORs and parentheses to combine synonyms or multiple topics
("black women" OR "African American women" OR "women of color")
( "Muslim American" OR "Arab American")
(woman OR girl OR female)
Truncate roots of important words* to find plurals and more
depress* (searches for depression and depressed)
cell$
pregnan!
Insert a “wild card” [*?$!] to catch words with different spellings
wom?n
coloni#ation
odo$r
*Truncation and wild cards work differently in different databases. Check the help section of the database to learn what symbol to use and how to properly use it.
Combine concepts with AND to find more relevant sources
"black people" AND depression
women AND Schizophrenia
"Asian American" AND bipolar AND mania
Use “double quotes” to find exact phrases
"Muslim American"
“Black Women”
“Asian American”
Use proximity searching* to find words near each other
women NEAR schizophrenia
depression NEAR/10 marginalization
*Proximity searching works differently in different databases. Check the help section of the database to learn how to properly use it.
Using controlled vocabulary will make it much easier to search the library catalog or databases. A controlled vocabulary refers to pre-determined terms used to describe specific concepts, usually assigned by a specialist to a source. These terms could be different from the keywords supplied by the author of a source. By using controlled vocabulary in a database search query, a user could still find sources that were described with unknown author-supplied keywords, whether these terms were synonyms or variant spellings.
Once you find a relevant source in the catalog or database, click on it to go to the source record, where you will find more information about it. Scroll down to the "Details" box, and look next to the "Subjects" to look at the controlled vocabulary subject terms associated with that the source. Incorporate these terms into your search!
Search for controlled vocabulary by in PsycInfo by navigating to the "Subjects" tab under the advanced search boxes. These terms are agreed-upon by catalogers when updating the database, and if you use them, you will be more precise in your search while eliminating the need to account for synonyms.
I would recommend searching using the "Term begins with" option if you have a pretty good idea of the term you are looking for. But using the "relevancy ranked" option is a good idea if you are not finding the terms you are looking for.
Once you have found your desired search term, take a moment to explore broader and narrower terms in order to understand the context of this term in the index hierarchy.
Select a term by clicking the check box and choosing "Add to search" on the upper right. Your selected term will be added to one of the boxes in your advanced search query. You can add as many terms as you want, changing Boolean operators as you see fit, until you have crafted a search query entirely composed of index terms.
