Searching 101 > 1: Prepare Before You Search
"Only librarians like to search; everyone else likes to find." Roy Tennant [librarian]
In this tutorial, you will learn how to find what you need in the expanding world of online resources. These resources include:
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- Library catalogs
At Ohio State University, the online catalog is called OSCAR and the statewide online catalog is OhioLINK. Use the catalog to locate resources provided by your library (books, journals, etc.).
- Reference databases
These include encyclopedias, periodical indexes, and full-text resources which the library licenses from publishers for your use. Use these databases to identify (and read) articles on a variety of topics.
- Internet resources
These are Web search tools that are available to everyone.
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Because these resources are created by different organizations, they don't all look or function in the same way. The good news is that there are key searching skills that can be used in all of these online resources to help you connect quickly to the information you need. This tutorial describes five steps for successful searching.
1A: Identify Key Concepts
The key to successful searching is good preparation. There are two parts to this first step. First, before starting to search, take just a moment to analyze your search topic. Write a sentence describing what you are looking for. Then identify:
- Main concepts (Hint: these are usually nouns rather than verbs, adverbs or adjectives)
In our illustration, the key concepts are substance abuse and treatment.
- Aspects of the topic (such as time, place) that will be useful for focusing your research.
In our illustration, some aspects are recent and U.S.
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1B: Identify Possible Search Terms
Next, make a list of words you can use to express each of your main concepts. As you do this, consider:
- Narrower or broader terms
Example: Shown in the table below.
| Broad term: | substance abuse |
| Narrower: | alcohol | drugs | tobacco |
| Narrowest: | beer
whiskey
wine |
cocaine
heroin
marijuana |
cigarettes
cigars
snuff |
- Synonyms
Example: Some synonyms for drug are dope, narcotic, opiate.
If you can't think of additional search words:
Activity
Practice identifying key concepts for searching. Try one of these:
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