At university you are expected to find and use scholarly information:
However, to find scholarly information you need to search in a particular way to get good results.
Use this page to learn how to plan your search and find the best scholarly information sources to use.
Before you find any information, identify the main ideas (or key concepts) in your assignment question or research topic
Example:
What are the key non-surgical interventions for convergence insufficiency?
The key concepts are:
non-surgical interventions | convergence insufficiency |
Different words can be used to describe the same concept.
Think of other words that could be used to describe your key concepts. Synonyms should also be included.
Example:
non-surgical interventions | convergence insufficiency |
Exercise Computer Vision Therapy Glasses Pencil Pushups |
Ocular Motility Disorders |
Tips:
Some resources to help with brainstorming:
Boolean Operators are a way of telling a database or search engine how to do your search. Watch the video to learn how.
Use Boolean Operators to combine your keywords & synonyms into a search. You can build multiple searches using different synonyms & keywords.
Phrase Searching should also be used when you are searching for an exact phrase or you have a keyword that is more than one word (for example, "convergence insufficiency").
To do this, simply put the phrase inside quotation marks for example, "convergence insufficiency".
When you don't use quotation marks, the database may split your words apart, so you end up getting lots of irrelevant results.
Example:
Use OR to combine synonyms & similar words:
Key Concept | Keywords & Synonyms | Search |
convergence insufficiency |
Ocular Motility Disorder |
"convergence insufficiency" OR "ocular motility disorder" |
Use AND to combine your key concepts together:
(exercise OR "computer vision therapy" OR glasses OR "pencil pushups") AND ("convergence insufficiency" OR "ocular motility disorder")
You will need to find different types of information during your studies. These may include:
The type of information you are looking for will determine where you search, and how you search.
Using the steps above will help you find most of these information types, but there are also other places to look.
Explore this study guide or ask a librarian to discover more.
Not all the information you get from a search will be useful. A successful search will show results relevant to your topic. If your results are not relevant go back and try different keywords in your search.
Find relevant results by checking the:
Even if your information is relevant, it might not be good quality. Check if it passes the C.R.A.P. Test before you use it.
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