net.TUTOR: Searching 101

Searching 101 > 5: Refine Your Search

Searching can be unpredictable. Some searches return too much information. Sometimes a well thought out search just doesn't find enough information. In any event, good online searching is iterative, requiring that you continually refine or tune your search.

Here are some proven strategies for adjusting keyword searches that find too much or too little.

Adjust:	To Narrow Results:	To Expand Results:
SEARCH CONCEPTS	Add search concepts, using the AND operator.	Remove some search concepts. Find information on the most important concept first.
SEARCH WORDS	Remove some search words, especially vague, ambiguous or abstract words.	Add more search words, using the OR operator.
SEARCH FOCUS	Limit search focus to a specific field or aspect (date, language, media, etc.)	Broaden the search focus from subject to keyword, or from one field to all fields of database.

Example:

Initial search:
"substance abuse" AND treatment

Too many results? Narrow by adding new concept:
"substance abuse" AND treatment AND Ohio

Too few results? Expand by adding more search words:
("drug abuse" OR alcohol OR alcoholism OR "substance abuse") AND (treatment OR therapy)

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For useful tips, watch this short movie: Better Searching [opens in new window]

Activity

Try each of these searches using Google Advanced Search to practice narrowing your results:

Find all of the words: journalism jobs
How many results did you get? Now click the "advanced search" link next to the SEARCH button at the top of the results page.
Add another concept to your existing search terms: ohio
How many results this time? Click the "advanced search" link to narrow this search again.
Find Occurrences on the search page and select: title of the page
Search again. Now how many results are returned? Are all 3 words in each site title?

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Searching 101 > 5: Refine Your Search

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