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Research Guides

Class Help Page for English 109C Introductory Composition: Design Search Strategy

Pacharee Sudhinaraset, Instructor

Design Search Strategy

One of the more important processes in conducting research is designing a search strategy. The following are things to consider in designing your strategy:

  1. Analyze your topic
    • You may need to use more than one research tool to find articles
      [ Some examples: America: History & Life | Academic Search Complete | Literature Resource Center ]

    • You may need to find information in different kinds of article sources
      [ Journals | Newspapers | Magazines ]

    • You may need to explore a subject over a period of time
      [ For example: 5 years | 20 years | 1960s | 19th Century | 20th Century ]

      It is important to clarify what you are interested in finding out about your topic. In other words, be clear about what you want to know about the topic. Familiarize yourself with the key issues and context.

  2. Select Keywords
    • Create a list of Related Terms. Another way to express this concept is to create a list of synonyms for the important concepts in your topic.
    • Narrower terms: (Good for limiting your search, excluding irrelevant information, or adding focus to your search)
      • Events-Civil Rights Movement, Birmingham Campaign, non-violent protests
      • Population -men, women, children/teens, groups (artist, educators, clergy, ethnic/racial groups, etc.)
      • Geography - cities, states, countries, regions
      • Time Period - current, decade, 20th Century
    • Broader terms: (Allow you to explore the broader context of your topic. Good if you're having difficulty finding sources)

  3. Create a Search Query
      Many of our research tools require that you use AND or OR to combine multiple terms/keywords in a search. In UWWorldCat the + is used.

      See examples below:
    • African Americans AND civil rights (narrows your search, both terms 'African Americans' and 'civil rights' must appear)


    • blacks + racial stereotypes


    • African Americans OR blacks (broadens your search, one of the terms must appear. Good for use with synonyms.)


    • Use a technique called truncation with the * symbol to search additional forms of a word.

      Example: cultur* will also find culture, cultures, cultured, cultural, culturing.

      African Americans AND cultur*

      Be aware that the truncation symbol may vary depending on the research tool (*,#,?,!) are the most common.

  4. Evaluate your Search Strategy
    Criteria for evaluating your research strategies and for evaluating information sources.