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First Year Seminars: FYS 131-3 What's in a Name?

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Library Catalog

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Interdisciplinary Databases

Disciplinary Sources of Information

Background Information

Keyword Searching Strategies

Keyword Searching

For both library catalogs and article databases, start with your keywords: such as:

"conspiracy theory" AND philosophy

"Secret societies" AND conspiracy

Connecting Words
  • Use AND to require both terms
  • Use OR to search for either term
  • Use NOT to exclude a term (for example, conspiracies NOT medical)

Subjects or Tags

Library catalogs will also list subjects/tags on each record that will make it easy to find other items on that same subject. 

Names

Names, Personal

Names, Geographical

Databases will have similar tags/subjects. If you click the tag, it'll show you everything in the database that shares that tag.

Need help choosing the right keyword?

Watch our short (4 minute) video. It will provide more strategies and example.