ENGL 299 / NUTR 200 Nutritional Sciences: Search Strategy Tips

Your Assignment:
Develop a research project focusing on Indigenous food sovereignty, environmental justice, and nutritional issues.

One of the more important processes in conducting research is designing a search strategy. You should use your search strategy when using library search tools/databases. The following are things to consider in designing your strategy:

1. Analyze your topic
   • It is important to clarify what you are interested in finding out about your topic; familiarize yourself with the key issues and context.  Begin by creating a research question.
     
     Your research question may evolve and change over time. Sometimes using a format to phrase your question helps: I’m researching _____ to investigate _____ in order to understand _____. This structure give you a way to keep your question narrow, identifying just the area that you are studying and helping your reader position the question within a field.
   
   
      
   
   
   • You may need to find information in different kinds of sources
     [ Books | Journals | Newspapers | Magazines | Media (images, video, sound recordings)]
   
   
   • You may need to use more than one library tool (database, etc.)
     [ Some examples: Sociological Abstract | Academic Search Complete | P.A.I.S.Index | UW Libraries Search]
   
   
   • You may need to explore a subject over a period of time
     [ For example: 5 years | 20 years | 1960s | 19th Century | 20th Century |Current ]
      


2. Select Keywords
   • Create a list of Related Terms. Another way to express this, is to create a list of synonyms for the important concepts in or associated with your topic.
      
   • Narrower terms: (Good for limiting your search, excluding irrelevant information, or adding focus to your search)
      
     • Population -gender (men, women), age (children/teens, adults, elderly), groups (artist, educators, politicians, clergy, ethnic/racial groups, etc.)
     • Geography - towns, cities, states, countries, regions
     • Time Period - current, decade, 21st Century, ancient
     • 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 databases or search tools require that you use AND or OR to combine multiple terms/keywords in a search. See examples below:

   • American Indians AND food sovereignty (narrows your search, all the terms 'American Indians and food sovereignty' must appear)
   • American Indians OR Native Americans (broadens your search, one of the terms must appear. Good for use with synonyms.)
   • food sovereignty AND (American Indians OR Native Americans) (combines connectors AND/OR together in a search)
   • Use a technique called truncation with the * symbol to search additional forms of a word when using a search tool or database.
     
     Example: politic* will also find politic, political, politically, politician, politicians, politics.
     
     American Indians AND politic*

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